PITTSBURGH - The Duquesne swimming and diving team will make the short drive to Oakland to take part in the 2019 Western PA Invitational hosted by Pitt at Trees Pool this Friday, Jan. 25 and Saturday, Jan. 26.

The Dukes will face off with the host Panthers, Carnegie Mellon, California (Pa.), Clarion and St. Francis U at the event. Both days will be streamed live on ACC Network Extra (Diving / Swimming)

The Duquesne divers will compete on Friday, Jan. 25 starting at 1 p.m. with swimming events taking place on Saturday, Jan. 26 at 12 p.m. This will be the Dukes' swimmers final event prior to the Atlantic 10 Championship at the end of February, while the divers will compete in the Westminster Tune-up on Feb. 9.

At last year's Western PA Invite, Abigail Stauffer paced the 100-yard breaststroke with a time of 1:05.23 for Duquesne, while the  200-yard freestyle relay team of Lexi Santer, Michelle Heim, Morgan Smith and Kristen McKnight placed first in the event with a mark of 1:36.81. 

The Dukes are coming off a split in duals against Ohio and Xavier last Saturday at Towers Pool, as Duquesne topped the Musketeers 159-100 while dropping a 137-124 decision to the Bobcats. Emma Brinton led the Dukes with three first-place finishes on the afternoon, winning the 200-yard freestyle (1:54.04), 200-yard backstroke (1:54.04) and the 200-yard IM (2:06.46) on her way to garnering A-10 Performer of the Week honors.

Duquesne owns five top times in the A-10 including Summer Svitavsky in the 500-yard freestyle (4:54.90), Stauffer in the 50-yard breaststroke (29.37) and the 200-yard breaststroke (2:18.35), McKnight in the 50-yard butterfly (25.34) and Audrey Steen in the 100-yard IM (56.75).

Brinton is second in the 200 IM (2:01.28) and the 400 IM (4:22.46) while sitting third in the 100 IM (58.77) Stauffer (100-yard breaststroke - 1:02.88), Steen (100-yard butterfly - 55.23) are third in those respective events, while the Dukes' 400 (3:28.47) (Carson Gross, Lauren Devorace, Heather Svitavsky, Hanna Everhart) and 800-yard relay (7:29.95) (Everhart, Devorace, S. Svitavsky, Gross) teams are third in those events, as well.

NEXT UP

• The Duquesne divers head to New Wilmington, Pa. for the Westminster Tune-up on Feb. 9 at 12 p.m.
• The DU swimming & diving team will look to defend its  A-10 title at the conference championship meet on Feb. 20-23 at SPIRE Institute in Geneva, Ohio