As the Pitt Panthers prepare for their first ACC Championships in just a few weeks, they got to experience a road dual meet against the conference’s best, going to Charlottesville to take on Virginia.
The Cavaliers would be a tough draw for anyone, boasting 6 straight ACC titles on both the men’s and women’s sides, and they proved it on Saturday, sweeping all but one event in a dominating home win to close out their dual meet season.
The breaststrokes were good to a pair of Cavalier underclassmen. Yannick Kaeser swept the 100 and 200 of the stroke for the men, while Laura Simon did the same for the women. Kaeser, a sophomore, was 55.57 in the 100 and 2:00.75 in the 200. Simon, a freshman, put up times of 1:01.80 and 2:12.63.
Meanwhile, Parker Camp and Courtney Bartholomew combined to sweep the 200 IMs – Camp was 1:50.69 and Bartholomew 2:02.77. Camp also won the 200 fly, while Bartholomew took the 200 back.
David Ingraham won a couple of blowouts for Virginia. He went 1:38.73 to win the 200 easily, then came back to 45.06 for another solid win in the 100 free. On the women’s side, Kelly Offutt had more success in the longer races. She won the 200 in 1:50.37, but then swam up to the 500 to win in 4:55.96.
The lone Pitt winner came towards the end of the meet in David Sweeney. The sophomore went 50.28 to just beat out Virginia’s John Denning by three tenths in the 100 fly to send the Panthers home with an event win on the day.
The Cavalier women, though, were suffocating, and nowhere exemplified that better than the relays. Virginia went 1-2-3 in both 200-distance relays, with the C 200 free relay team touching out Pitt by just .01 for third place.
In diving, Virginia’s JB Kolod triumphed on both boards, while Katherine Warburg and Rebecca Corbett combined to sweep the women’s events.
Of note: Virginia’s Leah Smith went 9:33.29 in the 1000 Free to jump to #1 in the NCAA women’s rankings.