Above, Pitt Sports Information Director Casey Garrow has put together a great video with Pitt head coach Chuck Knoles talking about the team’s 100 year celebration.
The Pitt Panthers had a wildly successful weekend at home in the Trees pool, as they celebrated 100 years of swimming at Pitt and 40 years of women’s swimming.
The Pitt men’s team formed in 1914, which predates NCAA swimming championships by a decade, and 60 years later they added a women’s program, and this is a year of celebration of a century of competition in the pool for the Pitt Panthers.
Their big celebration weekend began with a dominating pair of wins over former Big East rivals Villanova. Last year, the Villanova women actually beat Pitt in the meet’s final event, but this year, it wasn’t even close in favor of the Panthers, as they rolled to a 202-90 win: only dropping a single race until they started exhibitioning the last two swims of the meet.
Among the best swims for the Pitt women were a 1:51.69 from Dani Des Tombe in the women’s 200 free, where she fought off a tough challenge from Villanova’s Sara Jurek (1:51.75).
Des Tombe would later win the 50 free (23.75) and was the runner-up in the 100 free to Villanova’s Kaisla Kollanus (51.38).
The top performer for the Pitt men was Alex Rodenkirk, who won the 50, 100 and 200 yard freestyles in 20.87, 45.68, and 1:41.34, respectively.
Then, on Saturday, Pitt hosted the Western Pennsylvania Invite, which was a competition between Pitt and several western PA schools from smaller divisions. In that meet, Pitt won 28 of 32 events, though they swam a lot of off-races, so not many of the times stood out that much.
Among the wins for the other teams in that meet included a 2:07.0 in the 200 back from Gabby Schaffer of Division II Clarion University.
