Jan. 19, 2002

PITTSBURGH-Pittsburgh's men's swimming and diving team ran its unbeaten mark to 6-0 for the 2001-02 season with convincing victories over Maryland (265-87) and Villanova (285.5-60.5) at Trees Pool in a two day event.

The second day proved to be the same as the first for the most part as Pittsburgh won nine of 10 events, missing out on the clean sweep when Maryland finished 1-2 in the 200 butterfly.

Senior diver Blair Beal (Pittsburgh, Pa./Woodland Hills) provided his own clean sweep by taking the 1-meter competition on Saturday after winning on the 3-meter board on Friday night. He topped teammate Michael Wells (Downingtown, Pa./Downingtown) by a 306.65-284.15 margin for first place.

The Panthers then took the seven events to clinch the two dual meet victories. The 400 medley relay team of Steve Siler (Chicago, Ill./Westmont), Randy Gertenbach (El Centro, Calif./Paradise Valley), Brian Bonczek (Mechanicsburg, Pa./Cumberland Valley) and Stephen Kilroy (Allentown, Pa./Parkland) won the event in 3:28.34, over four seconds faster than Maryland's top team.

Individual wins for the Panthers included Max Von Bodungen (Malmo, Sweden/Borgarskolan) in the 200 freestyle with a time of 1:40.39, beating out Mike Grube (Drexel Hill, Pa./Upper Darby) by over a second.

Senior Will Eden (Scottsdale, Ariz./Chaparral) took first place in the 200 IM with a time of 1:56.58 to edge Neal Rubin of Maryland by 0.9 seconds. Other Panther individual victories came in the 200 butterfly (Von Bodungen, 1:50.88), 50 freestyle (Grube, 20.71 seconds), 200 backstroke (Siler, 1:50.86) and Eric Limkemann (New Haven, Ind./Woodlan) in the 500 freestyle with a time of 4:38.06.

The 400 freestyle relay team of Raymond Brush (Katy, Texas/Katy/Nebraska), Michael Demos (McKeesport, Pa./Elizabeth Forward), Kilroy and Joshua Quinn (Hamburg, N.Y./Orchard Park) won the final event of the two-day meet in 3:10.01 after Pittsburgh's top team was disqualified.

The only individual winner that wasn't a Panther was Maryland's Neal Rubin in the 200 breaststroke with a time of 2:09.81. He edged teammate Gergo Szekely by four hundredths of a second for the win.

Pittsburgh will travel to face Virginia Tech on Feb. 2 and Virginia on Feb. 3. The 18th-ranked Panthers will host the Pittsburgh College Invite on Feb. 9 at Trees Pool.