10-18-2016

The Pitt News

The independent student newspaper of the University of Pittsburgh | PIttnews.com | october 18,2016 | Volume 107 | Issue 58

Two Oakland homes robbed Lauren Rosenblatt News Editor

After two burglaries last weekend, Pitt and the city police responded to calls that two more residences in south Central Oakland had been robbed.

No one was injured in either incident this weekend or last, but residents of each home told police that valuables were missing.

Pitt and city police responded to a report of a burglary around 4:24 a.m on Friday, Oct. 14, on the 300 block of Semple Street. According to the crime alert, the victims were sleeping and woke up to find items missing.

None of the victims saw a person around their homes or in the area.

On Saturday, Oct. 15, around 2:04 a.m., police responded to another report of a burglary on the 3600 block of Bates Street. According to the crime alert, the victim noticed while walking home his vehicle was not where he had left it.

Once inside, he saw his A/C unit had been removed was lying on the ground outside his bedroom window. He reported several items missing from his room, including his car keys.

The police do not yet have any information about suspects for either incident.

Last weekend, police responded to two other burglaries on Meyran Avenue and Semple Street.

Police have not updated the reports for those incidents.

The police are asking that anyone with information regarding the incident call the Pittsburgh Police Department or the Pitt police.

editorial board presidential endorsement page 4 Bands and artists performed on Saturday evening in Squirrel Hill for Rock the Block, hosted by Pitt Pharmacy.

Li Yi STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Student petition calls for more psychiatrists Alexa Bakalarski

Assistant News Editor With 130 shares, more than 530 signatures and more than 100 comments, an online petition criticizing Pitt’s support of mental health services made its way around social media this weekend.

Anna Shaw, a junior psychology and gender, sexuality, and women’s studies major, started the petition on Friday after finding out that the only remaining psychiatrist at Pitt’s Counseling Center is leaving.

There are currently two vacant positions in

the Counseling Center: one from the psychiatrist who left Friday and one still open from a psychiatrist who left this summer, according to Student Affairs spokesperson Shawn Ahearn.

The Counseling Center’s website still lists John Carter Brooks as the only psychiatrist on staff, but a statement posted Friday evening on the Student Affairs Facebook page said the Center is “working quickly to fill two vacant positions.”

Ahearn also said the center is currently recruiting to fill the positions and doesn’t know yet when the replacements will be hired. He added

that the position might not be filled by two fulltime employees but by a combination of fulltime and part-time employees.

Shaw’s petition argues that due to a temporary lack of psychiatric care, students who cannot afford outside sources of mental health care will not have access to their medication until the position is filled.

“Pitt has made a decision about how they think about mental healthcare [sic] by letting this position go empty and has opted to let hundreds of mentally ill students slip through the See Mental Health on page 2

News

See Online -Chelsea Clinton speaks at O’Hara -Amy Bloom talks at Frick

See Online For crime map

Pitt gathers input on search for new arts and sciences dean Lauren Rosenblatt News Editor

Few Pitt students attended the open forum for the Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences’ new dean, but those who did said they wanted someone with a focus on inclusion, communication and collaboration.

On Monday afternoon, Pitt held the first open forum targeted at students to gather opinions about what characteristics they want to see in a new dean. After Dean John Cooper announced in June he was stepping down next fall to return to teaching, Pitt began the search for the next dean to take over in the fall 2017 semester.

According to Dean David Dejong, executive vice provost and chair of the search committee, the 12-person committee is still in the first stage of the process: listening to feedback from people around the University. In addition to Monday’s session, the committee is holding a session for College of General Studies students and graduate students on Wednesday and a University-wide session Friday.

“It may not be totally obvious that a dean has a major impact on the life of students ... but the dean does a lot to establish excellent working conditions for

Mental Health, pg. 1 cracks until it’s replaced,” the petition reads.

As of Monday night, the Change.org petition had 554 signatures and more than 100 comments from Pitt students, the parents of Pitt students and others.

On the Counseling Center’s homepage, Pitt says it has been “actively recruiting” for a psychiatrist since May. While it searches for a replacement.

Ahearn also directed The Pitt News to the Student Affairs Facebook page, where he said a statement was posted on Friday evening in response to the petition. The Pitt News could not find the post on the page, but Ahearn provided

pittnews.com

faculty and staff and sets the compass in terms of what’s important,” Dejong said.

Only three students showed up to Monday’s session — which was marketed on Facebook six hours before it began and through an email from the Dietrich School a few hours before the event.

Those who attended said they wanted a dean that would focus on diversity and inclusion in the classroom, all areas of arts and sciences — including humanities and social sciences — and who would be willing to use the classroom to start discussions about issues such as sexual assault awareness and mental health.

Marcus Robinson, a senior neuroscience and anthropology major and the former president of Rainbow Alliance, asked how the new dean would help make sure the classroom was as inclusive and welcoming as possible.

“A lot of times, professors wouldn’t be as accommodating or understanding of different issues people were going through,” Robinson said in reference to mental health, LGBTQ+ issues and other problems students from marginalized groups often face.

Dejong said diversity has been a frequent request and that the committee plans to look for tangible evidence from the text in an email.

“We understand that some students are concerned about the availability of psychiatric services due to the retirement and departure of two of our psychiatrists, respectively,” the statement reads. Ed Michaels, the director of the Counseling Center, said the Center has been in contact with local providers to help provide psychiatry services to Pitt students.

“We continue to work diligently to fill the vacant psychiatrist position in our University Counseling Center as quickly and strategically as possible to meet the needs of our students,” Michaels said in an emailed statement. “In addition, it is important for us to hire the right people, who can provide the level of care and

Dave Dejong, chair of the search committee, led the discussion about what students would like to see in new dean. Li Yi STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER candidate’s resumés that show a “commit- on their ideas and initiatives and with incoming students to familiarize them with ment” to these values.

Natalie Dall, a member of the search the University.

Dall said SGB has been considering committee and Student Government Board president, said the dean should be See Dean on page 8 available to work with current students psychiatry services our students expect.”

Pitt has expanded its counseling services to now include a total of 20 counselors and plans to open an additional location on campus, according to the statement.

The petition has been updated to say the Counseling Center is seeking a replacement for the position.

Shaw said she is not criticizing the Counseling Center but wants the petition to be a “red flag” for Pitt to not let this happen again.

“The goal of the petition is to ask Pitt to take [mental health care] more seriously and to put the funds and the importance there that need to be there in order for lapses like this to never occur again,” Shaw said.

October 18, 2016

The petition cropped up immediately following the University’s Mental Health Awareness Week, which began Oct. 10 and included such events as a lecture from a professional who struggled with mental illness and an art gallery.

Shaw met with representatives from Pitt’s Counseling Center Monday afternoon to discuss how to move forward and “talk to Pitt administration about putting the money, time and effort into making this an extremely effective counseling center.”

“This should never happen again, and there should be steps in place that it doesn’t — or at the very least have a temp immediately ready,” Shaw said.

2

Opinions column

Trump loses to Clinton in any test of character

Henry Glitz Columnist

Trump’s potentially criminal actions... are far beyond his Democratic rival’s.

Photo by Stephen Caruso CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

The Pitt news crossword 10/18/16

Words used in a decade-old audio recording have had a profound impact on the trajectory of the presidential race — so much so that without my even spelling them out, you probably already know what I’m referring to.

The audio tape The Washington Post released on Oct. 8 revealed Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in the midst of a flippantly crass discussion about sexually assaulting women. The reaction to the tape was immediate and intense with Trump’s polling numbers in national averages taking a nosedive. According to a survey NBC and the Wall Street Journal conducted Oct. 8 and

9, Trump faced an 11 point deficit nationally after the tapes emerged.

In any average presidential race, a major party nominee’s apparent approval of sexual assault would override most other voter considerations. But Trump supporters continue to shrug away Trump’s comments by comparing them to Clinton’s shortcomings — i.e. her “Crooked Hillary” reputation.

The truth is that Trump’s potentially criminal actions, specifically his abusive treatment of women, are far beyond his Democratic rival’s. Equating Trump’s moral and character failings with Clinton’s has more basis in sexist attitudes than reality.

The revelation that Trump holds See Glitz on page 4

pittnews.com

October 18, 2016

3

from the editorial board

The Pitt News endorses Hillary Clinton for President At the risk of accusations that we’ve misquoted him, we’ve let the candidate we’re not endorsing speak for himself.

“WHEN MEXICO sends its people, they’re not sending their best ... They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs.

They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.”

This line is how Donald Trump launched his campaign in June 2015. Illegal immigration in 2015 was the lowest since 1972, and Pew Research Center statistics show crime among first-generation immigrants is significantly lower than the overall crime rate.

“YOU’RE LIVING in poverty, your schools are no good, you have no jobs, 58 percent of your youth is unemployed — what the hell do you have to lose?”

Trump made this appeal to black voters while speaking in a predominately white Michigan suburb.

“MAYBE HE should have been roughed up, because it was absolutely disgusting what he was doing.”

The black man Trump referred to was shouting “Black Lives Matter” at a rally before being assaulted by Trump sup-

Glitz, pg. 3 less than-savory opinions about women and a history to match it fits with what close observers already knew about the candidate’s personality. Even during the Republican primary elections, conservative outlets including National Review apprehensively noted the candidate’s unhealthy self-regard, his penchant for abuse of power and general temperamental unfitness for the highest office in American government.

Combined with what most already knew about Trump’s unabashed bigotry, it might seem strange that this most recent revelation was what finally pushed some Trump sup-

pittnews.com

porters and supposedly called a “monkey” along with other racial slurs. “[I AM] CALLING for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.”

There are 1.6 billion Muslims globally, and according to the Pew Research Center, no country with a large Muslim population has less than an 85 percent unfavorability rate toward ISIS. “IT IS ALWAYS a great honor to be so nicely complimented by a man so highly respected within his own country and beyond.”

One of many such instances, Trump praised Russian President Vladimir Putin’s compliments of him last December.

Putin has faced widespread accusations of suppressing political opponents and holds an international reputation as a militaristic demagogue.

“YOU’VE GOT to get everybody to go out and watch, and go out and vote.

And when [I] say ‘watch,’ you know what I’m talking about, right? You know what I’m talking about… The only way [Democrats] can beat [me], in my opinion...is if in certain sections of [Pennsylvania] they cheat.”

Vigilante poll watchers have not been

porters over the edge.

Conservative pundit Charles Krauthammer offered a list of what he saw of as equally disqualifying aspects of Trump in a column last week for the Washington Post, including “habitual mendacity, pathological narcissism, profound ignorance and an astonishing dearth of basic human empathy.”

While none of those claims about Trump’s character are untrue, there is still an important distinction worth making between criticism of Trump as a private person and as a public persona. Krauthammer’s breakdown points to a weak, bad candidate, but the fallout following the release of the 2005 tape and the ensuing flood of sexual assault allegations

encouraged by major political candidates since before the Voting Rights Act of 1965, when Southern monitors commonly intimidated black people attempting to vote.

not attractive enough for him to assault.

Eight other women came out with similar allegations within the same week.

“YOU COULD SEE there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever.”

Trump claimed he meant there was blood coming from the nose of Megyn Kelly, Fox News anchor and moderator of the first GOP primary debate who directly questioned Trump’s policy platform and his record with women. Kelly did not have a nosebleed during the debate.

“YOU KNOW I’m automatically attracted to beautiful [women] — I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet.

Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything ... Grab them by the pussy.

You can do anything.”

Nonconsensual kissing or groping of genitals is sexual assault. According to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network, 284,000 Americans are raped or sexually assaulted each year — about one person every two minutes. Trump calls this “locker room talk.”

“LOOK AT [Carly Fiorina’s] face!

Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that, the face of our next president? I mean, she’s a woman, and I’m not supposed to say bad things, but really, folks, come on. Are we serious?”

Physical attributes are not enumerated in the qualifications for President of the United States.

“BELIEVE ME, she would not be my first choice.”

Trump rejected claims by Jessica Leeds, who accused Trump of groping her on an airplane in 1980, insisting she’s

Donald Trump’s words are not just “locker room talk,” nor are they irrelevant, off-the-cuff remarks. He is running for President of the United States, and as such, his words have the potential to incite violence and ostracize large swaths of the American public — including almost 51 percent of U.S. citizens who are women.

Come Nov. 8, The Pitt News will stand with Hillary Clinton. To do anything else would simply be irresponsible.

against Trump suggest that a potential criminal is running for president.

These aren’t just comments on his personality — they’re personal character flaws relevant to choosing a national leader.

There’s an obvious response to this critique of Donald Trump, and the reality TV star’s campaign has repeated this response well past the point of being rational or even intelligible: Hillary Clinton is the true criminal and should be in jail. Additionally, in light of ballooning difficulties for his chances with female voters, Trump chose to focus on attacking Clinton for her husband’s numerous sexual indiscretions.

While the very idea that Clinton’s actions

October 18, 2016

with respect to her husband’s sexual assault accusers could rank on the same level with Trump’s real, pervasive and practiced sexism is laughable, the strategy has nevertheless worked to a point. The common wisdom about Trump and Clinton is that “to elect either would be a moral disaster.”

Trump’s allegations that Clinton “viciously” attacked women who accused her husband of assault are unsubstantiated at best and in some cases are actually contradicted by the women involved.

In one instance, Juanita Broaddrick, who accused Bill Clinton of rape in 1978 while Bill was governor of Arkansas, reported that See Glitz on page 5

4

Glitz, pg. 4 The com common wisdom abou about Trump and Clinton is that “to elect eithe either would be a mo moral disaster.”

pittnews.com

Hillary Clinton approached her at a fundraiser shortly after the event to ostensibly offer her thanks for “the things you do for him.”

While a cynical take on the episode might potentially suggest coercion, evidence is slim that Hillary Clinton knew anything about her husband’s assault at the time and her words on their own hardly suggest anything ominous.

But that isn’t keeping Trump from crudely taking advantage of the story for political gain.

Sexism and a gender bias compose a running similarity between most character assassinations directed at Clinton. The Democrat’s continuing struggle with the character “issue” of likeability are shamefully conflated to be on par with real character flaws. Concerns about the candidate’s truthfulness and perceived secretiveness are somewhat better-founded. But it’s important to note that much of the reason for the candidate’s reluctance to engage with the media stems from aggressive, accusatory and potentially prejudiced press coverage that began with her emergence on the national political stage a quarter-century ago and hasn’t stopped since.

Much of the criticism involving Clinton’s

October 18, 2016

personality has been based on what critics call her cold, unemotional personality. Again, this isn’t necessarily untruthful, but it’s not a disqualifier for holding the top position in the country.

This isn’t to say that Hillary Clinton has no character issues — she is, after all, a human being. What’s shocking is the degree to which national media and voters’ consciousness have internalized the absurd belief that Clinton’s missteps are in some way equivalent to Donald Trump’s outrageous abuse of people, be they his ex-wives, contestants in his beauty pageants or those small businesses unfortunate enough to hold contracts with his sham of a business.

Character matters, and, despite her human flaws, Hillary Clinton has the character of a president. Revelations about Trump’s character from the past few weeks have shown beyond the shade of a doubt that his is utterly unacceptable.

This presidential election is a choice less of policy than of character. One candidate’s flaws are human — the other’s are disqualifying.

Henry primarily writes about government and domestic policy for The Pitt News. Write to Henry at hgg7@pitt.edu.

5

Culture

Medicine meets music at Rock the Block Salina Pressimone For The Pitt News

Rarely does an outdoor block party give an attendee the opportunity to sit down with a cold beer as a pharmacist-in-training presses two fingers to her wrist, feeling for a pulse.

But on Saturday, Pitt’s chapter of the American Pharmacists Association-Academy of Student Pharmacists, or APhA-ASP, defied the conventional street fair norms.

APhA-ASP — a group that represents Pitt pharmacy students — participated in Squirrel Hill’s annual Rock the Block event to collect money for the American Diabetes Association. The afternoon of music and art, co-hosted by Squirrel Hill community groups and Pitt’s School of Dental Medicine and School of Nursing, began at 5 p.m. on Murray Avenue in the Squirrel Hill business district.

Musicians, including Eastend Mile, Emerson Jay and Nevada Color, played until 10 p.m., backdropping a wellness fair

and a Zumba demonstration. Local market vendors, food trucks and artists catered and also participated in the event along with 40 businesses and restaurants. “[Getting your blood pressure taken] in settings like this makes it way more approachable and not as scary as going to a doctor,” said Sarah Greener, a senior in the nursing school and president of Pitt’s Nursing Student Association who was assisting in blood pressure monitoring services.

Nevada Color’s lead singer stepped off the stage during his performance to shake hands with the crowd, while festival-goers listened to music, munched on pad Thai and admired their new wine bottle wraps made from recycled denim.

Around the stage, pharmacy students set up booths to provide personalized health screenings and educate attendees about exercise, healthy eating and vaccinations.

Pitt pharmacy students test festival-goers’ blood pressure at Saturday’s Rock See Rock the Block on page 7 the Block . Li Yi STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Review: “Ward” an impressive debut for Williams John Hamilton For The Pitt News

Andy (Alex Manalo) recovers at a psych ward after a friend finds her in a catatonic state. Photo courtesy of Zack Williams

pittnews.com

Early on in the student-produced film “Ward,” the protagonist Andy, donning a red shirt juxtaposed against stark white walls, takes a handful of pills and immediately spits them out with regret.

Following the incident, Andy — a firstyear college student played by Point Park University senior Alex Manalo — finds herself talking to a psychiatrist after she’s found in a catatonic state. Andy knows that she has symptoms of depression but is surprised when Dr. Jamison (Cassidy Davis), the psychiatrist who runs the psych ward where the film is set, recommends she check into the hospital.

The rest of senior Zack Williams’ film follows Andy’s stay in the psych unit as she

October 18, 2016

deals with symptoms of depression and searches for happiness. During her stay, Andy meets Jackson (Cooper Marsh), a wisecracking patient who struggles to deal with his mental illness later in the film, contrasting with Andy’s story of self-improvement.

“Ward” premiered to about 150 people last Thursday during Pitt’s Mental Health Awareness Week in the Frick Fine Arts Building’s auditorium. Williams, a senior communications major, wrote, directed, edited and composed music for the half-hour short film. The film is personal for Williams, whose experience with mental illness shares similarities with his characters’.

Williams was diagnosed with Bipolar II in 2014 and spent time in a psych ward both before and after shooting the film, a See Review on page 7

6

Rock the Block, pg. 6 Kristel Chatellier, a second-year pharmacy student, offered fitness advice and a Tide laundry detergent bottle to demonstrate a college-friendly form of weight lifting.

“Exercise is better for depression [and] anxiety, and those are things a lot of college students deal with, along with the stress of classes,” Chatellier said. “So our group talks about little exercises you can do just in your room.”

Students shared wellness tips between alternating runs to food trucks for cannoli bites and the stage for classic rock tunes.

The event promoted healthier living by providing free flu shots and BMI tests and beer with grilled cheese sandwiches — minus the unhealthy toppings.

Katie Castello, a Pitt alum, said she was impressed with the fair and would have benefitted from a similar event during her time at Pitt.

“It’s nice that they’re trying to educate everybody just even a little bit,” Castello said, “because you’re never too young for these issues.”

Visiting families, students and Squirrel

Hill locals toured local artisan businesses sponsored by I Made It! Market, which is Pittsburgh’s nomadic crafts marketplace that promotes natural and resourceful living.

Mixed aromas circulated throughout Squirrel Hill’s bustling streets, coming from the Cool Beans food truck, Mineo’s Pizza House’s fresh pizza, Bangkok Balcony’s papaya salads and Coop Chicken and Waffles.

As the night progressed, the local Pittsburgh musicians each hit the stage across from the beer garden, enthralling members of the multigenerational audience with indie, pop, jazz and hip-hop music to contribute to raising diabetes awareness.

“That’s the best part of the whole thing,” Brandon Bates, Emerson Jay’s guitarist, said. “We’re always willing to provide what we do to get a bunch of people together to help out a good cause.”

Attendees strolled through the street with bags of glucose-monitoring equipment, personalized nutrition plans and sugar-free M&M’s as third-year pharmacy student and president of APhA-ASP, Archita Achanta, reiterated the fair’s slogan.

“We can battle this together,” she said.

Review, pg. 6 treatment that worked for him. In “Ward,” he attempts to clear up the misconception that a mental hospital is a place for “crazy” people.

The ward in the film is quiet and calm — a far cry from the typical, overdramatized version depicted in movies like “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” Instead of wearing straitjackets and guzzling pills, Andy and the other patients play chess, draw and talk about their illnesses.

In an interview after the screening, Williams said, “The goal was to depict mental illness as normal as it can be depicted. There are times when everyone feels mental instability.”

Even Dr. Jamison’s character suffers an emotional breakdown during the film.

After one of her patients takes a step backwards in treatment, Jamison bursts into the stairway and breaks down in tears, silencing the room as the audience watched her crying. Sean O’Connor, who attended Thursday’s premiere, said that the way “Ward” portrayed her character gave him a new perspective on mental illness.

“It was interesting how they gave [Dr. Jamison] emotional vulnerability, too,” said senior Sean O’Connor.

“Ward” is the first major project Williams has directed. He and Stephen Kraus, the director of photography, said that they tried to make the film look as professional as possible. The duo added that they learned much of the technical side of the production during shooting, often using YouTube tutorials and how-tos found through Google searches.

Overall, their work shows — the film’s video and sound quality looks professional for a low-budget student production. However, their inexperience is noticeable sporadically due to mistakes with dubbed audio and minor continuity errors scattered throughout.

A more substantial issue is the film’s use of very short shots. The constant cutting away, especially in dialogue scenes, can become distracting. don’t allow the audience enough time to feel it.

Find the full story online at

pittnews.com

The Pitt News SuDoku 10/18/16 courtesy of dailysudoku.com

pittnews.com

October 18, 2016

7

Dean, pg. 2 making changes to the programs available to first-year students. To make the Freshman Program classes more effective, Dall suggested including information about bystander intervention and mental health awareness.

“Having a dean who would be committed to introducing those difficult conversations earlier could help prevent some of those problems before they arise,” Dall said.

In addition to the school’s search committee, the University is working with the search firm Isaacson and Miller. Dejong said the applications will likely be available by mid-November and the deadline for completed applications will be in midDecember. At that point, the committee can start the screening and interviewing process.

By February, Dejong said the committee plans to have a list of six or seven candidates to present to Provost Patricia Beeson. Those candidates will each visit campus for a day and a half, and the list will be made publicly available.

Dejong said the position is open to people within and outside of the University and that Pitt is accepting nominations.

In the meantime, he said the search committee is in a “quiet phase” where members’ main goal is to find out what other people at the University — including undergraduate students — are most concerned with.

“Undergraduates are a huge, huge part of what we’re doing, and we need to make sure that we’re doing the very best we can to justify your faith in us,” Dejong said.

“And, like I said in the beginning, the dean has a lot to do with that.”

pittnews.com

October 18, 2016

8

Sports

See Online For volleyball recap

Whitehead sparks Panthers defense in win Steve Rotstein

Sports Editor Facing third-and-10 from his own 44-yard line with 18 seconds left in the first half, Virginia quarterback Kurt Benkert thought he saw a receiver come open over the middle of the field.

But he didn’t see Jordan Whitehead.

The Pitt football team had just tied the game at 28 with 40 seconds left in the first half, but with the way their defense was playing, it appeared the Panthers’ offense left Virginia too much time to counter.

Continuing an ongoing trend in the 2016 season, the Panthers were scoring at will in Virginia, but the defense couldn’t keep the opponent out of the end zone.

Then, returning from an unexplained absence that forced him to miss Pitt’s 43-27 win over Marshall, Whitehead reminded everyone why he is the reigning ACC Rookie of the Year.

Benkert had already engineered four scoring drives in the first half against Pitt’s defense, and sure enough, he began leading the Cavaliers down the field once again. He then tried sending a pass over the middle on third-and-long, but Whitehead undercut the Virginia receiver’s route and snatched the pass out of the air.

Rather than go down and head to halftime in a tie game, Pitt’s sophomore safety decided to show how deadly he can be with the ball in his hands.

Whitehead sprinted down the sideline, bypassing all the orange jerseys in his way, then darted back inside and into the end zone for a 59-yard touchdown return. With only four seconds left in the first half, the Panthers improbably had their first lead of the game, 35-28.

Whitehead said reading Benkert’s eyes helped him bait the quarterback into throwing the interception.

See Football on page 10

Jordan Whitehead (9) had a key interception return for a touchdown in Pitt’s 45-31 win at Virginia on Saturday. Courtesy of Pitt Athletics

syracuse stifles pitt women’s soccer in acc matchup, 1-0 Alessandro Conway Staff Writer

With the Pitt women’s soccer team locked in a tense battle against the Syracuse Orange, the action stopped for a free kick in the 26th minute.

Syracuse defender Taylor Bennett stepped up and blasted a perfect shot into the top left corner of the net, notching the only goal that would count in the Sunday afternoon battle between these two conference opponents.

Coming off a thrilling double-overtime victory over Miami, the Panthers (2-12-1 overall, 1-6-0 ACC) looked to ride the momentum of their first ACC win into their first road win of the season in Syracuse, New York. But missed opportunities and a disallowed goal came back to haunt the team, and the Orange (8-5-3 overall, 1-4-2 ACC) triumphed in a hard-fought defensive battle, 1-0.

A jittery start for the Panthers saw first-year forward Christiana Davey clear a driven Syracuse shot off the goal line in the eighth minute.

The Panthers started to get more aggressive as sophomore forward Sarah Krause set the tempo for Pitt’s ofSarah Krause (3) and the Pitt women’s soccer team fell fense early on while also coming back on defense to help at Syracuse, 1-0. Jeff Ahearn SENIOR STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

pittnews.com

October 18, 2016

win back the ball.

Likewise, junior midfielder Hanna Hannesdottir consistently broke up Syracuse’s play in the center circle.

In the 12th minute, sophomore midfielder Juliana Vazquez found Krause in the Orange’s penalty box with a beautifully weighted pass. As Pitt’s forward was about to shoot, Syracuse defender Sydney Brackett flew in with a slide tackle and flattened Krause in the process.

Panthers head coach Greg Miller screamed at officials from the sideline, irate at the lack of a penalty.

Nevertheless, Pitt continued to create offensive opportunities as a shot from Krause took a dangerous deflection off of a defender in the 22nd minute and sent Syracuse keeper Courtney Brosnan sprawling.

Shortly after, Vazquez received a perfect cross from senior right-back Emily Pietrangelo, but Brosnan made the save.

Right when the Panthers seemed to be getting comfortable, Bennett’s 30-yard free kick sailed past Pitt goalkeeper Taylor Francis. It was a perfect shot, and there was nothing Francis could do to stop it.

Find the full story online at

pittnews.com

9

Football, pg. 9 “When [Benkert] dropped back, he kind of keyed on me, looking at me,” he said at his postgame press conference. “When he was looking at me I kind of stayed still ... and when he threw it, I was right there, and I saw open field from there.”

The play caused a shift in momentum that carried over into the second half for Pitt’s defense, tackle Tyrique Jarrett said at the press conference.

“It was a big play. We thrived off of that,” Jarrett said.

After giving up 270 yards and four touchdowns to Virginia in the first half, the Panthers held the Cavaliers to 94 yards after the break, surrendering just three points on a field goal with the game already out of reach. Pitt’s defense forced Virginia to punt on all five second-half possessions before the late field goal.

“I feel as though it was a mentality. We sat back during halftime and talked about it,” Jarrett said about Pitt’s first-half struggles. “We corrected the mistakes and just attacked it different.”

Last year’s ACC Rookie of the Year was having a relatively quiet sophomore campaign before Saturday’s game. He now has 41 total tackles in six games played after totaling a team-leading 109 tackles in 13 games last season, when he set a school record for tackles by a true freshman.

The whole defensive unit stepped up to shut down the Cavaliers, but the star sophomore deserves credit for providing the spark.

Whitehead had four total tackles to go with the interception — his first of the season — in Pitt’s 45-31 win on Saturday. He also added three carries for 28 yards on offense, continuing to make plays whenever the Panthers give him the ball.

The big game earned Whitehead recognition as the ACC Defensive Back of the Week as well as a spot on the weekly Honor Roll for the Paul Hornung Award, given annually to the most versatile player in college football.

The Panthers clearly missed Whitehead against the Thundering Herd, but they never needed him more than that third-down play at the end of the first half in Virginia. “[The interception] was gigantic,” Pitt head coach Pat Narduzzi said at his postgame press conference. “That was huge before the half. Tremendous football play.”

pittnews.com

October 18, 2016

10