Pitt Men Finish Strong at Minnesota Invite

Wednesday, November 30

Minneapolis, MN

(WED) 6 PM CT / (THURS-SAT) Prelims: 10 AM CT | Finals: 6 PM CT

Pitt

Minnesota (Swimmers Only)

Pitt Men Finish Strong at Minnesota Invite

12/3/2022 9:57:00 PM | Swimming & Diving

MINNEAPOLIS – The Panthers sent 10 swimmers to the finals in four events as they closed out the final day of competition at the Minnesota Invite, Saturday night.

Senior Cooper Van der Laan led the men's team over the course of the four-day meet, taking third in the 100-yard breast (52.14) and fourth overall in the 200-yard breast (1:55.25). Van der Laan qualified for an NCAA B Cut in both the 100 and 200.

"This was a very good week of racing for our team," said head coach Chase Kreitler. "Our plan for this invite was to get a short rest leading into the meet and work on racing really hard in the prelims to prepare for ACCs and NCAAs. We did a fantastic job of that! We had a lot of lifetime best swims and season best times. We also had nine individual A Final swims throughout the course of the meet, which was very solid given the Top 5 nationally ranked teams that we competed against. We are really looking forward to our altitude training camp in Colorado Springs in a few weeks and the second half of the season!"

Guy Frimis, Wojciech Dutkowiak, Wesley Kephart, and Alex Craft took on the 1650-yard free in an afternoon race. Frimis (15:47.65) came in 16th with Dutkowiak (15:51.20) right behind in 17th overall. To finish off, Kephart (15:54.41) took 19th, and Craft (15:58.30) claimed 21st.

The Pitt men were sturdy over the course of the Invite. Junior Marcin Goraj shined this weekend posting a season-best time of 1:44.34 in the 200 back in prelims and finished 16th (1:47.55) overall in the event. Goraj also claimed 13th overall in the 200-yard IM (1:47.23) and 15th in the 100-yard back (47.67). To complete the event, Derek Zhang (1:47.46) came in 20th, Krzysztof Radziszewski (1:49.11) finished 24th, and Jered Moore (1:51.34) took 32nd.

In the second event of the night, Dominic Toledo took 27th overall with a time of 44.39 which was a drop from his morning swim in the 100-yard free.

The Panthers continued the evening with three individual qualifiers in the 200-yard breast: Van der Laan, Jerry Chen, and Javier Zorzano. Van der Laan (1:55.25) took 4thand Chen (1:57.39) finished 6th, both qualifying for an NCAA B Cut. Zorzano (2:00.34) placed 25th dropping his time from his morning swim.

Continuing the momentum, Adam Mahler and Drew Jalbert headed to 200-yard fly finals, the last individual event of the evening. Mahler came in 8th with a 1:45.68 time qualifying him for an NCAA B Cut, and Jalbert finished in 27th-place with a time of 1:51.24.

The Panthers wrapped up the Minnesota Invite in the 400-yard free relay. The team of Toledo, Flynn Crisci, Goraj and Radziszewski took 18th-place with a 2:59.03 time. Frimis, Mahler, Michael Rine, and Zhang finished the race in 23rd with a time of 3:02.00.

Up Next
The Pitt men's swimming team is back in action Saturday, January 14, as the Panthers will host West Virginia at Trees Pool for their senior meet. The men's and women's diving teams head back on the road to compete at the USA Diving Winter Nationals Dec. 15-17.