Oct. 7, 2001

PITTSBURGH-The Panthers' women's swimming and diving team opened its season with a loss to Big East rival Notre Dame on Fri., Oct. 5, by a score of 223-77.

The Fighting Irish won 14 of the 16 individual events, with the two Panther wins by Ryan Redman (Pittsburgh, Pa./North Hills) in the 100-yard breaststroke and Emily Colley (Pace, Fla./Pace) in the 500 freestyle.

Redman took first place in the 100 breaststroke in a time of 1:04.55, which was 1.42 seconds faster than the second-place swimmer, Notre Dame's Laurie Musgrave. Kristina DeWitt (Houston, Texas/Statford) finished fourth in the event with a time of 1:08.06.

In the 500 freestyle, Colley defeated teammate Rubi Cisneros (Monterrey, Mexico/Monterrey) by over five seconds as the two Panthers finished first and second, respectively.

Individual second-place finishes for the Panthers included Colley in the 1000 freestyle (10:26.24) and Jen O'Brien (Verona, Pa./Penn Hills) in 1-meter diving with 276.37 points.

The Panthers' 200 medley relay team of Carolyne Savini (Egg Harbour Twp., N.J./Holy Spirit), Redman, freshman Katie Nicholson (Lisle, Ill./Benet Academy) and Jenny Livingstone (Endwell, N.Y./Union-Endicott) finished second with a time of 1:47.65, just 1.48 seconds behind Notre Dame's top team.

Pittsburgh dropped to 0-1 with the loss and will return home to compete in the annual Blue-Gold meet on Oct. 12 at 4 p.m.