2-20-17

February 20, 2017 | Volume 107 | Issue 126

The Pitt News

GUIDE TO 2017 SGB ELECTION ARLIND KARPUZI

Arlind Karpuzi, a junior finance and marketing major, is running for SGB president. Karpuzi, a Board member, is a resident assistant in Bruce Hall and a brother of Pi Kappa Phi fraternity. Karpuzi’s plans include making systemic changes to the University that will improve student involvement in SGB. “When the entire campaign team sat down, we tried to figure out how are we going have this before and after... we want to instill a lot of different issues into the classroom...like improving the Freshman Programs courses,” Karpuzi said.

JUSTIN HOROWITZ

Justin Horowitz, a junior marketing and business information systems major, is running for SGB president. Currently a Board member, Horowitz plans to form an advisory committee for gauging student climate on diversity and inclusion, improve access to and better the services of the University’s Mental Health Task Force and restructure SGB to include a representative from every student organization.

“The administration doesn’t have a choice but to meet with me and listen to me as president, but I can make that choice of whether or not I want to be the voice of students and whether or not I want to be that aggressive voice,” Horowitz said.

MAX KNEIS Max Kneis, a finance and accounting major, is running for SGB president. Kneis, currently SGB vice president and chief of finance, plans to lobby for student representation on the Board of Trustees — which determines tuition levels — and securing students a permanent place on committees that hire University administrators.

“I think the way I view the presidency, and the way I kind of view SGB in general, is not this group that handles everything internally... SGB is there to enable and empower student groups,” Kneis said.

For full information on slates, see page 2. For The Pitt News’ official endorsement, see page 6

News

Get to know the slates Allies

The Pitt Allies slate focuses on 12 initiatives. The group plans to establish an LGBTQ+ advisory and resource center, expand the SGB website and improve disability resources by placing permanent desks in classrooms for students with wheelchairs and fixing the ramps on campus shuttles. The slate also proposes changing the course material for the Freshman Programs course to include conversations about the resources available for diversity and inclusion, mental health and sexual assault.

Zuri Kent-Smith, a sophomore economics and natural sciences major, is vice president of RISE — Reach Inside Your Soul for Excellence — a program that began this academic year to “help [first-year] students get acclimated to the campus and help develop necessary skills needed to succeed” at Pitt, according to its website. Following the presidential election, he petitioned to have exams postponed and rescheduled in response to student distress.

Nihita Manem, a junior neuroscience and psychology major, is a sister of Gamma Sigma Sigma sorority and a Sigma Sigma Sigma sorority education director. She plans to increase walkin hours at the Counseling Center to reduce the stigma surrounding mental health.

Ciara Barry, a junior finance and marketing major, is vice president of the Lady Panthers lacrosse team and recruitment chair of Phi Beta Lambda. She plans to educate student organization leaders about how to maximize funding efforts to increase satisfaction and decrease dues.

Crime map Online The presidential candidates affiliated with these slates are on the front cover.

42 Stories

Summit

The aptly named slate proposes 42 changes to Pitt’s campus, including instituting monthly town hall meetings for the student body to attend, expanding the SafeRider system to pick up students at all hours and increasing both the number of gynecologists on staff and the hours they work. The slate also proposes an extension of winter break, stemming from the Board’s successful lobbying for the creation of a fall break in 2008.

Maddie Guido, a sophomore biological sciences major, is focusing on programs that promote women’s and sexual health on campus, as well as creating a graduate mentorship program for students to learn more about Pitt’s graduate schools.

Ami Fall, a sophomore political science and psychology major, intends to promote mental health and sexual assault awareness on campus. She also plans to modify the policies surrounding finals week, specifically by extending the minimum amount of time allowed between a student’s exams.

Ian Callahan, a junior electrical engineering major, served as director of finance for the Engineering Student Council in the past. He plans to improve safety on campus through the creation of a “Blue Light” app, allowing students to use the blue light system — an on-campus emergency phone that connects directly to Pitt police — in areas where there are no physical posts, such as South Oakland. He also plans to improve access and increase hours for Pitt’s campus shuttle service.

The initiatives of the Summit slate include improving Pitt’s mental health services by hiring more staff at the Counseling Center, providing enough physical space for treatment and implementing an effective referral system for students who use the maximum eight therapy sessions in an academic year.

The Summit platform also proposes to have the University partner with Uber to aid with campus security. They also want to find ways to provide cheaper and healthier options at campus convenience stores, such as QuickZone and Market To-Go. Krishani Patel, a junior biology and religious studies major and Pitt Pathfinder, plans to establish a three-day “Reading Period,” without classes before finals and make online programs needed for certain classes, such as TopHat and Sapling, free to students.

Emily North, a sophomore marketing and supply chain management major, is president of Delta Zeta sorority. She plans to work with Sodexo, the University’s food supplier, to regulate food costs on campus and decrease food waste. She also plans to extend the blue light system to off-campus student neighborhoods.

Alex Spenceley, a sophomore neuroscience major, is focusing on increasing the transparency of club sports’ funding allocations. Spenceley also plans to promote transparency and to educate students about allocations through informational meetings.

“I don’t just want us just updating students on what we’re doing,” Horowitz said. “I want to hear about their events and everything. I want to have these conversations.”

From left: Ciara Barry (Allies), Saket Rajprohat (The Point), Ian Callahan (42 Stories), Ritika Bajpai (Independent), Emily North (Vote Summit), Davis Weaver (Union) ALL PHOTOS COURTESY STUDENT GOVERNMENT BOARD

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February 20, 2017

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Union

The Point

Independent

The Union slate candidates centered their platform on three main issues: diversity and inclusion, student representation and student safety. In direct response to the recent crime wave on campus, the third response is aimed at working with Pitt police, the University and the surrounding community to improve safety measures.

Natalie Cheuk, a junior political science and linguistics major, is focusing her campaign on diversity and inclusion, women’s health and SGB rebranding. The slate also aims to improve sexual assault resources, including the development of trained students known as peer responders.

“Everyone deserves an ally after experiencing sexual violence,” Cheuk said.

Nicholas Fisher, a junior political science and communication rhetoric major, is running on a platform of student safety, mental health, student representation and campus innovation.

Davis Weaver, a sophomore political science and international studies major, plans to increase student representation on SGB, add more classes that will satisfy general education requirements for Arts and Sciences students and focus on student awareness of counseling services.

With student interaction as their main focus, the Vote Union slate chose not to run a presidential candidate.

“We believed that in running for three Board positions we could most directly and effectively work with students to make an inclusive, welcoming, unified Pitt for everyone,” Fisher said.

This three-member slate comprised of all sophomores represents how, like the three rivers in Pittsburgh, the candidates have come together from three separate backgrounds to make a point. Some of the issues the slate wants to tackle include getting rid of allocation requests at meetings and replacing the process with liaisons who will talk to students about funding in person. They also want students to elect all the members on the allocation committee. Allocations committee members currently apply through Student Government Board.

Manny Marotta, a sophomore political science major, is currently the vicechairman of the facilities, transportation and technology committee for SGB. He said he and the other slate members have discussed projects such as making guest sign-in a tap system — which means instead of scanning cards, students can tap their cards against a device to get into a building. He also wants to create a direct messaging link on the SGB website so students can talk to live representatives.

Saket Rajprohat, a sophomore political science major, plans to expand students access to gender-neutral bathrooms and push for Pitt to become a sanctuary campus for undocumented immigrant students. Rajprohat is a columnist for The Pitt News.

Emilee Taylor, a sophomore political science and economics major, served as a member of the community and governmental relations committee for SGB this year. Her goals as a Board member include making sure the “Year of Diversity” doesn’t end with this academic year and working on SGB’s communication with the student body.

“This campaign has only drawn us closer [to the presidential candidates],” Marotta said. “We’ve had many opportunities to collaborate with them and our initiatives have really grown from the guidance of what the president’s platforms are.”

Ritika Bajpai, a first-year computer science and finance major, is the only candidate not running as part of a slate. She said she wants to run for SGB because she enjoyed being on the board at her high school. After attending the slate mixer, where SGB candidates can mingle and form slates, she realized most people already formed groups, so she decided to run alone.

Her three main initiatives are continuing the current work the Board has done on the sexual assault campaign — such as reviewing Pitt’s sexual assault policy and increasing accessibility resources for victims — getting healthier and more diverse food options on campus and bridging the communication gap between SGB and the student body.

She said, as an outsider, she wants to offer a new perspective to the Board.

“I feel like I have fresh new ideas,” Bajpai said.

pittnews.com

February 20, 2017

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TRUMP PROTESTERS MARCH TWICE OVER WEEKEND

Elias Rappaport and Andrew O’Brien The Pitt News Staff

President Donald Trump may have taken office a full month ago, but his detractors haven’t lost any of the passion they showed on inauguration day.

Marching to the beat of drums, hundreds of protesters rallied around causes ranging from immigrant rights to the environment and vocally opposed Trump Saturday at Schenley Plaza.

Others gathered in downtown Pittsburgh Sunday morning to fight racism and imperialism by the president’s administration. The Pitt College Democrats, on Saturday, hosted their first rally since Trump’s win. The event kicked of at 2 p.m. with rousing speeches delivered by city councilmen, and planned parenthood activists, among more. A large crowd of about 250 mostly older Pittsburgh residents — some of whom brought their children — showed up to Schenley Plaza to dissent, while others came to challenge the protest itself.

The march circled the Cathedral of Learning, snaked up Fifth Avenue and culminated back at the plaza. At the beginning and end of the route, anarchists, communists and other groups outside the two-party system held flags condemning both parties and repeated chants directed at the protesters.

The anarchist disruption was planned in advance by Filler PGH, an anarchism-focused zine, and was intended to protest the Democrats. In a flier posted around campus, the group wrote “some really cool folks are getting involved [in dissent], but their intentions are continually sabotaged by the reality of our situation: the Democrats are part of the problem.”

At the rally, City Councilman Dan Gilman spoke enthusiastically to the crowd, pushing his

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mission of working to make Pittsburgh a “sanctuary city,” as he closed his brief statement.

“We do not believe in hate, we do not believe in fear, and yinz are always welcome here,” Gilman said.

First-year biology major, Sofia Russo, saw the disruption against the democrats, as she marched near the front of the crowd, protesting for her friends and family who are affected by the administration. Despite not agreeing with the anarchists’ rhetoric, she didn’t contest their presence.

“To trash the American flag, to me, is really disrespectful and so I don’t agree with them, but they have a right to do what they please,” Russo said.

The day after Pitt students and other members of the Pittsburgh community came together to protest Trump at Schenley Plaza, another group converged about three miles off campus to demonstrate against the new commander-inchief.

The Pittsburgh chapter of the ANSWER Coalition, a national organization dedicated to fighting racism and imperialism, hosted their “Down With the Trump Agenda” rally at 1 p.m. Downtown Sunday.

Soon after the protest began in Market Square, speakers that the ANSWER coalition invited took turns railing against injustices in the United States through a megaphone. One of the first speakers, Frank Ariet, delivered a forceful speech, decrying anti-Muslim sentiment and the rising amount of hate crimes committed against Muslims since Trump began his campaign in 2015.

“I am a Muslim tired of watching my sisters get harassed, beaten, raped and killed,” Ariet said.

“They are afraid to walk down the street because of people spitting in their faces and ripping off their hijabs.”

Eduardo Morales, another speaker, con-

demned Trump’s executive orders increasing the power of immigration officers and expanding the criteria an illegal immigrant must fit before being targeted for deportation.

“Please don’t forget the immigrant doesn’t leave his homeland because he wants to,” Morales said. “He does it because he needs to.”

As the speakers talked, many of the roughly 150 crowd members held up homemade signs.

Some spelled out serious slogans — “Stop Trump - Shut Down White Supremacy” and “Resist with Love.” Other signs offered more lighthearted and tongue-in-cheek messages such as “Yuge embarrassment!” and “How’s the audit coming along?” in reference to Trump’s refusal to release his tax returns on the basis of an ongoing IRS audit.

Dinah Denmark, of downtown Pittsburgh, came to the protest with her wife. Her sign read “Save Immigrants. Deport Republicans!” She said she believes Trump’s presidency is nothing less than a political crisis, but she’s hopeful Trump will energize his political opposition enough to spur America on to positive change in the future.

“As a Jew and a lesbian, I know what it can mean to live in what could become a fascist environment,” Denmark said. “Hatred that is perpetuated by fear and ignorance is a dangerous cocktail. All of us have to raise our voices.”

And raise their voices the protest-

February 20, 2017

ers did, cheering enthusiastically throughout the speaker’s speeches. At about 2:20 p.m., the protesters took to the streets, following a police escort. Before the march began, the organizers called for peace, so the protest remained orderly and lawful. Members of the crowd could be heard thanking the police for their protection as they passed by.

One driver rolled down his car’s window and shouted, “Trump!” and “Get a job!” several times each at the protesters, who ignored him.

When the crowd reached Market Square once again, Taylor Goel, the Pittsburgh coordinator for the ANSWER Coalition, thanked the crowd for coming out, and told them to keep fighting for what they believe in.

“You could feel the people’s power in the air,” Goel said as the event ended. “Hopefully it’s becoming clear to people that only their own power can resist the Trump administration — not the millionaires in the Senate.”

Trump protesters marched down Forbes Avenue on Saturday afternoon. Thomas Yang STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

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The Pitt News

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February 20, 2017

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Opinions from the editorial board

TPN ENDORSES JUSTIN HOROWITZ FOR SGB PRESIDENT The Pitt News’ editors meet with Student Government Board presidential candidates every year, and then collectively decide who we believe will be the best person to lead the student body.

We endorsed Natalie Dall last year — a decision that wasn’t easy, but was less contentious because of obvious differences between her platform and her opponent Matt Sykes’. The lineup is different this year, and the decision was incredibly difficult.

Max Kneis, Justin Horowitz and Arlind Karpuzi are all longtime members of SGB, and boast various points of intersection on their platforms. All three candidates, for instance, plan on instituting a town hall style assembly to garner more student interest next year. Each of them also wants to increase transparency about decision making and continue the progress made on issues concerning mental health awareness and sexual assault reporting.

But after nearly an hour of discussion and a tight vote, it was Horowitz’ willingness to admit weaknesses in the relationship between the SGB and Pitt, his passion for vocalizing students’ needs and his ability to offer concrete plans for meeting these goals that swayed the endorsement.

Each Tuesday, when TPN covers SGB meetings, we notice a lack of non-SGB students filling up seats in Nordy’s Place. For a governing body that handles $2.6 million in student funds and is supposed to represent our interests, this — along with a sharp decrease in voter turnout for SGB elections — is concerning.

“One meeting a month, I would suspend reports completely and invite students to come talk to us,” said Horowitz, as a way to increase student engagement with the Board. “[This way] we can be more proactive about reaching out to people instead of expecting students to come to us.”

Horowitz’s bottom-up approach of get-

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ting more students to communicate with SGB includes working with resident assistants in each of the first-year residence halls, creating a monthly newsletter for spreading the word about SGB initiatives and events and expanding the Student Organization Assembly to include more student groups.

Currently, the student assembly body of the Board only includes 15 student organizations. Horowitz would increase that representation to include a representative from every student organization at Pitt. Admittedly, this idea could result in a monthly 500-person town hall meeting where only a select few are able to take the mic, but allowing every student organization a channel through which they can voice concerns is important nonetheless.

One of the SGB’s biggest jobs is handling student allocations money. All of the $160 each student pays in the student activities fee falls in the hands of SGB, and the Board is the sole body on campus that determines which organizations will get funding.

Horowitz took issue with the fact that allocations spending has gone way down in the last two years. In fact, last year there was leftover money because student groups weren’t making as many requests.

“Student groups aren’t utilizing us like they use to. We have a huge decrease in the amount of requests and the amount of funding that’s being requested each year.” he said.

“A couple years ago, I feel like there was really this stigma around the allocations committee and that they were mean and just did everything they could to not fund these programs and events and petitions.”

Recognizing a problem is the first step — neither of the other candidates brought up this issue with allocations funding. Horowitz said SGB is given a lot of funding each year to distribute to student groups, and he believes it should all be distributed by the end of the year.

Part of his ideas for expanding allocations includes opening the process up to Greek organizations — since many members of SGB are in Greek life, including Horowitz, we were skeptical of this point.

Horowitz stipulated that funding would not be able to go toward recruitment or social events, but could only be used for Greek events that would benefit the entire student body, such as a Listen, Lucy event put on by the Collegiate Panhellenic Association in October 2016.

Additionally, he proposed amendments in the allocations manual that would create additional rules for allocating money to Greek organizations. Since Greek organizations are student groups, and don’t get money from their national chapters, we endorse his plan with the stipulation that funding should only go toward public events.

Horowitz also pitched specific proposals for building on what SGB has already done this year. In the coming weeks, he said a page that outlines exactly how students can report sexual assault will go up on the my.pitt homepage. After that, he plans to work with the Green Dot program to institute bystander training for students. To hold Pitt to the commitment it’s made to diversity and inclusion, he plans to create a task force to meet with the administration biweekly, with a focus on diversifying Pitt’s faculty.

What really made Horowitz stand out among his contenders was his realistic view of the SGB’s role at Pitt.

“One thing I’m concerned about is that the past few Boards have more so been a voice of the administration than the students,” Horowitz said. “I’m not afraid to stand up against [the administration] and say this is what we need to make the Pitt experience better for students.”

As the University continues to grow and change, we think it’s important that transparency with the student body does not

February 20, 2017

shrink.

The Sanctuary Campus petition, for example, has gone without comment from Chancellor Patrick Gallagher for weeks.

As Horowitz pointed out, the administration has an obligation to listen to the SGB president on a regular basis. When it comes down to it, we want a president that will use this exclusive access to the dean of students and the chancellor to hold them accountable for student concerns. SGB should be a conduit for the needs of the student body, not another bureaucratic barrier standing between the administration and the campus.

Horowitz has the vision and the insight to be critical of SGB and how it’s operated in the past, meaning he knows what changes it needs in the future. He also recognizes ways in which the Board is too close with the administration — favoring, at times, diplomatic relations over a commitment to issues concerning students.

Right now, he’s got the most aggressive mindset for getting his initiatives done and setting a new precedent for the way SGB should be representing the student body.

We lament the fact that Kneis and Karpuzi won’t be able to serve on the Board at all if they lose, but we support Horowitz’s ambitions to challenge the status quo.

If he succeeds, we will hold Horowitz to his promises. And, as in the past, we hope his year in leadership will inspire an even livelier debate next spring.

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Letter to the editor

Oliver Jia, Sophomore, Japanese and English writing major

The Pitt news crossword 2/20/17

Note: The author of this letter has written for The Pitt News in the past.

I am writing this letter in response to Mr. Thomas Wick’s recent opinion piece on the topic of whitewashing in Hollywood [Feb. 15]. I will preface my response by saying that I am a half-Chinese, half-Lebanese student at Pitt with dual American-Canadian citizenship. I come from a multi-cultural background, and Asian culture in particular has been a large part of my upbringing. As such, whenever the the topic of so-called “whitewashing” in regards to Asians in Hollywood is brought up, it usually captures my attention, although likely not in the way most would initially assume.

To begin with, I am skeptical of the belief that Hollywood, or any other organization at all for that matter, is somehow required to hire employees merely on the basis of arbitrary characteristics such as race or skin color. As with any job, the requirements should be that the person most skilled for the position is the one most eligible to be hired. Hollywood, however, is a popularity contest in regard to choosing its performers. Executives care about faces that sell, and the examples that Mr. Wick cites are prime examples of this.

Zhang Yimou is one of the most forefront names in Chinese cinema, and he has previously employed foreigners in his films. His 2005 drama, “Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles,” centered around a Japanese man, played by the late actor Ken Takakura, traveling to China in order to fulfill a promise for his dying son. Takakura was a veteran Japanese performer beloved by many Chinese, and Yimou chose him despite the often strained relations between these two countries in an effort of cross-cultural exchange. His 2011 war film, “The Flowers of War,” starred Christian Bale as an American character who aided Chinese citizens during the events of the Nanking Massacre. Foreign nationals were a major part in this moment of horrific history, and Yimou chose Bale to play one of these pivotal roles. His latest picture, “The Great Wall,” has Matt Damon as a Western soldier in Song Dynasty-era China, which seems to be what Mr. Wick takes issue with. During this time, China did indeed have relations with Western countries due to the fact that the nation was a powerful global center. Do you notice a pattern? This is not the first time Yimou has utilized non-Chinese actors in his work, and like before, this is for the purpose of telling a narrative that deals with foreigners in unfamiliar settings. If anything, Damon’s inclusion represents intended diversity as Yimou is not limiting

himself to only Chinese performers. And as an actor popular both at home and abroad, the decision to utilize Damon makes absolute sense from a business perspective.

Mr. Wick’s second example of “Ghost in the Shell” is even more straightforward. If you ask the average American on the street what “Ghost in the Shell” is, I guarantee that the majority would not be able to answer. This is a franchise known only to hardcore anime fans, something that would be a serious risk at the box office for a Western studio. Scarlett Johansson, on the other hand, is a major star and a name that sells tickets. Considering that this is a Western-made film for a Western market, what exactly is the problem here? It is not as if the Japanese are immune to this trend with their own movies either. “Attack on Titan,” a popular anime franchise, is set in Germany with a cast of primarily white characters. For the Japanese live-action adaptation, however, Japanese actors were employed.

Where was the outcry over white characters being played by Asians? Would this not be an example of “yellow-washing?”

As an Asian-American, I appreciate Mr. Wick’s concern as a non-Asian for wishing my race to have more representation in Hollywood, but fame should not be something handed over to a person simply because they were born with arbitrary genetic characteristics. A cursory Google search will reveal the names of Asian artists such as Bruce Lee, Lucy Liu, Margaret Cho, Sessue Hayakawa, Jackie Chan, George Takei, Tadanobu Asano, Ken Watanabe, Hiroyuki Sanada, Ang Lee, John Woo and many more who have succeeded in the Western entertainment industry. These are people who were not awarded stardom because they were Asian but because they were talented performers, directors and writers who achieved success through their own determination and hard work.

When asked about being on how he felt as a Chinese actor working in Hollywood, Bruce Lee replied, “You know what I want to think of myself? As a human being.”

If we were to perhaps stop focusing on our arbitrary divides and come to the realization that underneath our skin, we all bleed the same blood, I believe that much more harmony between peoples would be achieved. Do not group entire races into single entities, assuming that we think the same.

Realize that we are individuals, all of whom are given an equal chance to achieve our individual goals.

No one is owed success, as it can only be earned. Do not expect something for nothing.

pittnews.com

February 20, 2017

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Sports

Weekend sports see online

SOFTBALL CONTINUES FLAWLESS SEASON Steve Rotstein Sports Editor

The No. 24 Pitt softball team’s first weekend as a nationally ranked team went a lot like the opening weekend that earned the team its ranking — flawlessly.

Coming off five wins in five games at last weekend’s season-opening University of Central Florida Invitational, the Panthers traveled to Tallahassee, Florida, to take on the Nebraska Cornhuskers and Northwestern Wildcats in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge.

Pitt knocked off Nebraska in five innings Friday night, 9-1, then handled the Cornhuskers again Saturday morning, 6-2. That night, the Panthers defeated Northwestern in extra innings, 2-1, and capped off the weekend with a 6-4 win over the Wildcats Sunday morning.

“From the beginning of the season on, we

have been extremely resilient with our play in general,” Pitt head coach Holly Aprile said Saturday in a press release after the Panthers’ extra-inning win.

Pitt junior cleanup hitter Giorgiana Zeremenko entered the weekend only 2-for-14 on the season, but it didn’t take long for her to break out of her slump.

After Panthers junior McKayla Taylor was hit by a pitch in the bottom of the first inning, Zeremenko brought her home with an RBI double to right field for the first run of the game. Nebraska loaded the bases in the top of the second, but Pitt junior Kayla Harris escaped the jam by inducing a pair of flyouts.

Panthers sophomore Olivia Gray singled and stole second base in the bottom of the second, then came home to score on sophomore Alexis Solak’s RBI single to make it a

PITT WRESTLING TOPS DUKE IN SEASON-ENDING WIN

2-0 ballgame.

By the end of the third inning, the game had turned into a rout. Pitt senior Kaitlin Manuel delivered a two-run single, then Gray followed with an RBI double to make it 5-0. That brought first-year right fielder Connor McGaffic to the plate, who delivered a three-run homer — the first of her college career — to make it an 8-0 Panthers lead.

The Cornhuskers made it on the board in the top of the fifth because of an error by McGaffic, but Solak responded with an RBI double in the bottom of the fifth to put an end to Pitt’s 9-1 victory. Harris gave up zero earned runs in five innings to pick up her third win of the season.

First-year phenom and reigning ACC Pitcher of the Week Brittany Knight stepped into the circle for the Panthers Saturday morning against Nebraska, putting her 3-0

record and 0.00 ERA on the line.

Knight would give up her first earned runs as a college pitcher, but did more than enough to pick up her fourth win.

Zeremenko again started off at the plate for the Panthers, opening the game up with an RBI single up the middle. The Cornhuskers got to Knight in the bottom of the first though, scoring two runs on four consecutive hits to take a 2-1 lead.

A pair of two-run doubles by Solak and Taylor gave the lead right back to Pitt in the top of the second. Buoyed by the lead, Knight held Nebraska scoreless for the next five innings, and sophomore Sarah Dawson came out of the bullpen and pitched a 1-2-3 bottom of the seventh to close out a 6-2 win for the Panthers.

Bayard Miller

Matt Kocher said. “We knew it was the last dual meet of the year, we knew we had two seniors in the lineup that we wanted to send out with a win.”

The Panthers’ victory capped off a successful season, for three wrestlers in particular. Sophomore TeShan Campbell and juniors Dom Forys and Ryan Solomon all finished the year ranked in the nation’s top 25, according to InterMat. All three won their bouts Saturday.

Seniors Mikey Racciato and John Rizzo were honored before their last home match with framed Pitt singlets, given by co-head coaches Drew Headlee and Kocher alongside acting Athletic Director Randy Juhl. Both wrestlers walked out of the gym as winners, Racciato with an 11-8 decision and Rizzo with a 5-0 shutout.

The 149-pound Racciato kicked off the match, taking on fellow senior Xaviel Ramos for the Blue Devils. Starting the final period in the bottom position with the score tied at five apiece, Racciato escaped, took down Ramos and exposed See Wrestling on page 9

Assistant Sports Editor

After a regular season filled with distractions and disappointments, the No. 24 Pitt wrestling team closed out its regular season on a three-match winning streak after defeating Duke Saturday night.

The team endured a midseason coaching change, a wrestler falling out of his dorm room window and breaking several bones and a scandal involving women found on the internet in a wrestler’s hotel room during a tournament in December.

But on Saturday night, Pitt (11-5 overall, 2-3 ACC) cruised to a 28-9 victory over Duke (4-9 overall, 0-5 ACC).

With two Panthers pinning their opponents and 285-pounder Ryan Solomon scoring an upset victory over Jacob Kasper — the No. 3 heavyweight in the country — the team ended its last regular season meet of the season with a victory at the Fitzgerald Field House.

“We did a good job of just stomping Ryan Solomon upset No. 3-ranked Jacob Kasper in Saturday night’s the gas pedal,” Pitt acting co-head coach 285-pound bout. Donny Falk STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

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February 20, 2017

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Wrestling, pg. 8 him to his back for two more nearfall points, making the score 10-5. A reversal and stalling warning gave Ramos three more points, but Racciato escaped and the match ended with an 11-8 decision to give Pitt an initial 3-0 lead.

“It’s pretty crazy it’s been four years,” Racciato said about his time at Pitt. “The days go slow but the years fly.”

First-year Taleb Rahmani followed Racciato for the Panthers, but he ran into trouble in the first period when redshirt junior Jake Faust grabbed his ankle in a single-leg shot. But Rahmani avoided the takedown before sensing his opportunity and quickly getting Faust on his back.

Moments later, the referee slammed the mat, signifying a pin for Rahmani and six more points for Pitt.

Refusing to be outdone, Campbell got redshirt senior Michael Wright on his back a minute and a half into his bout. Using a crossface cradle, the No. 16-ranked Campbell recorded the Panthers’ second pin in a row just 1:41 into the match.

After Campbell’s quick outing, 174-pound sophomore Donovan McAfee — who gained weight to move up a weight class — wrestled Duke senior Connor Bass. Bass owned a 3-0 lead going into the third period but with a minute left in the match, McAfee escaped after starting the period on bottom. McAfee was unable to score and fell to Bass 4-1, giving Duke its first win of the match.

In the 184-pound bout, redshirt sophomore Zach Bruce wrestled Blue Devils junior Alec Schenk. Bruce led 1-0 going into the third period, but a technical violation from Bruce gave Schenk a point to even the score and take the bout into sudden-death overtime. Schenk promptly took down Bruce, giving him the 3-1 decision.

Next came 197-pound senior Rizzo’s final match in the Fitzgerald Field House. He competed against junior Luke Farinaro. In the third period, Farinaro attempted a shot, but Rizzo defended well and got Farinaro on the ground instead. After a stalling call and assessing the riding time, Rizzo won his last home bout by a score of 5-0.

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Redshirt junior heavyweight Ryan Solomon stepped onto the mat next to square off against Duke’s highest-ranked wrestler, No. 3 Jacob Kasper. Solomon took down Kasper with a single-leg takedown in the final minute of the first.

After an escape, Solomon started the second on top with a 2-1 lead, then Kasper escaped again 35 seconds into the second period. Starting on bottom in the third, Solomon was able to gain two points on a reversal, and when time expired, Solomon completed the upset victory with a 4-3 decision.

“The highlight [of the match] was Solomon going out and beating a highly ranked guy,” Kocher said. “You get four of those, you’re on the podium in March [in the NCAA Championships]. [Kasper] has beaten everybody else in the conference, and now Ryan’s showed that he can beat anybody in the conference.”

After Solomon, 125-pound LJ Bentley wrestled against junior Thayer Atkins. Bentley escaped from bottom position after a 0-0 first for a one-point lead.

It seemed Atkins score two points after he nabbed Bentley’s ankle. But for the second time that night, a Pitt wrestler fought his way out of a desperate position — after Atkins pulled on Bentley’s headgear, the referee awarded Bentley a point.

Atkins escaped with 15 seconds left in the third, but Bentley held on for a 2-1 win.

Next, it was No. 8-ranked junior Dom Forys’ turn to take the mat against 133-pound Cole Baumgartner. Forys cruised to a 14-3 major decision, with the Duke wrestler’s only points coming from uncontested escapes.

Saturday’s final match was between the 141-pounders, with Pitt redshirt junior Nick Zanetta facing off against Duke redshirt sophomore Zach Finesilver. Zanetta only scored thanks to an escape and Finesilver gained a convincing 6-1 victory. Ultimately, the win mattered little, and the meet ended with a 28-9 final score in favor of the Panthers.

The team is now looking forward to ACC Championships, which will take place March 4, in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Softball, pg. 8 Harris came back out for her second game of the weekend Saturday night against Northwestern, tossing a one hitter over eight dominant innings of work to improve to 4-0.

“Kayla [Harris] was tremendous,” Aprile said Saturday in the press release. “For the first couple of innings, she threw a lot of pitches. Some of their players worked deep counts but she really kept battling through that and we made some great defensive plays behind her too.”

The Wildcats took an early lead on a twoout RBI single by designated hitter Kenzie Ellis in the top of the first inning, and for a while, it looked like that would be the difference in the game. The game continued with a standstill for six-plus innings, and Pitt entered the bottom of the seventh needing a run to avoid its first loss of the season.

Manuel delivered for the Panthers, lacing an RBI double down the right field line to send the game into extra innings. Harris held Northwestern scoreless in the top of the eighth, and Zeremenko singled home Taylor with two outs in the bottom of the eighth to clinch the walk-off 2-1 win for Pitt.

Knight started the final game of the

weekend for the Panthers Sunday, and for the first time, she didn’t appear to be in complete control of the game. Knight allowed three runs on seven hits in 3 2/3 innings, but Harris finished off the final 3 1/3 innings by allowing only one run on three hits in Pitt’s 6-4 win over the Wildcats.

Northwestern scored first on an RBI single by shortstop Marissa Panko in the top of the first, but the Panthers tied it up on Solak’s sacrifice fly in the bottom of the second. A two-run single from Ellis gave the Wildcats a 3-1 lead in the bottom of the fourth, prompting Aprile to call on Harris to relieve Knight.

Harris got out of the inning without allowing any more damage, then posted a zero in the bottom of the fifth, giving Pitt a chance to strike in the top of the sixth. The Panthers took advantage, tallying five runs to take a 6-3 lead before holding on for the 6-4 victory.

The Panthers are now 9-0 overall and they will look to keep that perfect record intact next weekend at the Troy Tournament in Troy, Alabama. Pitt will begin the tournament by facing off against Lipscomb Bisons for the first of five games at 12:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 24.

The Pitt News SuDoku 2/20/17 courtesy of dailysudoku.com

February 20, 2017

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