The Pitt News 9-11-14

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Vol. 105 Issue 27

75°|57°

@thepittnews SK8ER BOI

Thursday, September 11 , 2014

Pittnews.com RIVALRY

Students choose PSU over Pitt Dale Shoemaker Staff Writer

In the ongoing fight for dominance of Pennsylvania college pride, Pitt may be falling behind Penn State.

A study published earlier this year by Parchment, a company that accepts online submissions of college transcripts, compiled the “revealed preference” of 104,119 college students in the United States. The study showed the percentage of students who chose a particular college, when accepted to more than one, for the 2012-2013 academic year.

Between Pitt and Penn State, Pennsylvania’s two largest public universities, 60 percent of students who were accepted to Josh Ducar, a senior psychology major boards down the hill in front of Chevron Science Center. Josh is a member of the Pitt both schools chose Penn State.

Read the rest online at Pittnews.com. boarding club. Theo Schwarz | Senior Staff Photographer

Pitt is a hot spot for international students, report shows Anjana Murali For The Pitt News

Pitt is known to express its diversity. Take the iconic Cathedral of Learning, which has 30 nationality rooms created to celebrate cultures around the world.

According to a 2014 Global Cities Initiative report from the Brookings Institution and JPMorgan Chase, Pitt is a top destination for

foreign students. Last year, there were 2,780 foreign students enrolled at Pitt with 625 undergraduate and 2,155 graduate students.

Pittsburgh is among the top 20 metropolitan destinations for foreign students, by ranking 15 out of 118 metros, according to the report.

The majority of foreign students at Pitt come from China, India and South Korea, according to the Pitt’s Office of Institutional

Research 2013-2014 Fact Book.

For Ali Balubaid, a student from Saudi Arabia, Pitt was a “top spot” because of its bioengineering program.

“As for the Saudi population, many of them attend Pitt because it is very good in physical therapy,” said Balubaid a freshman bioengineer. “Plus there is a very diverse, international student body here.”

In a 2012 ICEF Monitor report, Essam M.

Al Khathlan, a researcher from the Academic Expert Office in Saudi Arabia, said that a large part of the Saudi population is interested in studying in the U.S. not only to learn English but also to study physiotherapy and sports medicine.

Balubaid considered studying in Saudi Arabia but was deterred because bioengineer-

Students

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STUDENTS ing was not offered at the undergraduate level.

Balubaid applied to 10 universities in the U.S. including Pitt, Johns Hopkins, University of California San Diego, Virginia Tech, University of Colorado, Boulder, Michigan State, Purdue and Penn State. He left his family in Saudi Arabia, but he said he will return over summer break.

He chose Pitt over his other top choices — Purdue and Penn State — and said he is adjusting well to Pittsburgh and hasn’t found many problems here because the community is “very friendly and open to students.”

“If I wasn’t living in this dorm I would have more international student [friends],” Balubaid said. “Sutherland West makes me feel included. We always socialize here by hanging out in the hallway.”

Learning English was not a problem for Balubaid — he learned to speak Arabic and English at the same time. What took some adjusting was the cultural difference relating to gender, he said. “Boys don’t really communicate as much with girls in Saudi Arabia,”

September 11, 2014 | The Pitt News | www.pittnews.com Balubaid said.

Additionally, Balubaid finds it hard to laugh at jokes at Pitt.

“American humor is not as funny,” Balubaid said. “It’s very bland.”

Balubaid first came to the U.S. last year after finishing high school in Saudi Arabia.

Through an ESL program at Rutgers University, Balubaid studied English, took the SAT and applied to American universities within a year.

As a result, Balubaid initially didn’t interact much with other Americans but said that he now feels comfortable in his new life.

What he misses most is the heat of Saudi Arabia, where the average temperature is 77.6 degrees Fahrenheit year-round according to weatherbase.com.

Unlike Balubaid, Kim Yearwood does not miss the heat of her Barbados, which is her home country.

“I chose not to go to California because there is a lot of sun there, and it’s hot just like Barbados, and I didn’t want to be there anymore,” said Yearwood, a freshman majoring in physical therapy.

When deciding to come to college in the U.S., Yearwood looked all over the nation for

the schools that had the best research, study abroad and volunteering opportunities.

Her top schools were Pitt, University of Southern California, Azusa Pacific University and University of South Florida. She said she chose Pitt because it had the best physical therapy program and offered her the best financial package.

While Shutian Shen, a freshman studying psychology and philosophy, describes Pitt as an “exciting” place, she also finds it a bit unfamiliar when compared to her home in Guangzhou, China.

“People here like to go to parties, and they like to have lots of people being together singing and dancing,” Shen said. “It’s really exciting, but sometimes I prefer having just a couple of friends staying together or enjoying personal time in the library.”

Shen said that while she likes living in Pittsburgh, she misses the food back home.

“Chinese food is more healthy, less fried and we keep the natural state of the food so that it’s more fresh,” Shen said.

Shen applied to many schools in the U.S. including Pitt, Hamilton College and University of California — Berkeley and Los Angeles.

She also applied to many Ivy League schools

such as Brown University, Princeton University and University of Pennsylvania.

Shen said she specifically applied to schools with high populations of Chinese students, though she has been speaking English since elementary school.

“It’s sometimes good to be in a community that has lots of people from the same place,” Shen said.

Shen made the decision to study abroad in the U.S. during her sophomore year of high school.

“I spent a year [in China] to take all of the tests and prepare all of the applications and essays,” she said.

Shen said she looked for practical factors in the schools she applied to, such as tuition and safety.

“Pittsburgh is not that crowded but is also a big city and has wonderful resources like theaters, sports events and arts,” Shen said.

Shen said she hopes to spend a lot of time exploring the many museums and art galleries in Pittsburgh in her spare time.

“Pittsburgh is also a city with lots of history,” Shen said. “There’s something very fascinating about it, like it has lots of stories to tell.”

September 11, 2014 | The Pitt News | www.pittnews.com

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OPINIONS

Separation of church and state: Stop the pettiness Allegheny County Council struck down legislation that would have placed the words “In God We Trust” in the county’s courthouse Tuesday night.

The national motto would have graced a three-foot-square plaque alongside the phrase “E Pluribus Unum” and the Pennsylvania motto “Virtue, liberty and independence.”

As Councilman Ed Kress (R-Shaler) put it, “All we are doing is honoring our state motto and our national motto.” Additionally, Councilwoman Sue Means (RBethel Park) stressed, “It’s our national motto. It’s patriotism. It’s history.”

But community leaders made an example out of the proposed addition to the plaque. County Chief Executive Rich Fitzgerald led the charge.

Before Tuesday’s meeting, the Allegheny county democrat urged council members to vote no on the bill, saying

CRAIG

diversity needed to be improved — implying that such a measure would obstruct that.

In an email to council members, Fitzgerald stated, “Support and passage of [the proposed legislation] tells our residents and visitors that if they are Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, Athiest, Muslim, Islamic or any other non-theistic group, they are not welcomed here.”

Clearly, it is not the national motto that is disrespectful to these religions, but rather Fitzgerald’s email itself.

According to the message, Jews and Muslims do not believe in a deity and atheists are not even worthy of a quick spell-check.

It’s a petty conflict. But even more petty is a controversy created out of something like words on a three-footsquare plaque.

The separation of church and state

is essential to a free democratic society, but obsessing over something like the display of a national motto is a distraction from real First Amendment violations that occur throughout the country.

For instance, in some states, laws remain on the books that outlaw atheists from holding office. These states include Arkansas, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas. Article 14, Section 265 of Arkansas’ constitution states, “No person who denies the existence of a Supreme Being shall hold any office in this state.”

It doesn’t take an ivy-league constitutional law professor to realize that such laws are in violation of First Amendment rights, which are guaranteed to state citizens through the incorporation clause of the 14th Amendment to the United States constitution.

But exactly whose freedom is being

squandered by the proposed three-footsquare plaque? No one’s.

Displaying the national motto in a courthouse is not a real injustice.

Fighting laws that actually violate church-state separation, such as any that would establish government preference of particular religions and inhibit the practice of others, is a laudable effort.

But the focus on more petty matters — such as the use of the word God in the pledge of allegiance or our national motto — is not adding to the separation of church and state but distracting from real breaches of it.

It is time we say no to leaders and citizens whose support lies on the foundation of pettiness. Our efforts as a city, state and country should be to fight against actual injustice and to do so without the distraction of meaningless crusades against words and signs.

Female empowerment: It’s not for everyone

Jess Craig Columnist “Dear candidate, thank you for your application to our ballet academy.

Unfortunately you have not been accepted. You lack the right feet, Achilles tendons, turnout, torso length and bust. You have the wrong body for ballet, and at 13 you are too old to be considered.”

This plays in the background during Under Armour’s “I Will What I Want” commercial.

During the advertisement, inspirational music plays while a ballet dancer sweeps across the stage in a series of spins and leaps. Her muscles bulge, her toes point — she embodies grace and beauty.

The commercial features professional ballet dancer Misty Copeland who, despite being told she didn’t look the part of a ballet dancer

— bone-thin and white — became a soloist at the American Ballet Theatre. A similar advertisement is CoverGirl’s “Girls Can” commercial, which features celebrities like Katy Perry, Ellen DeGeneres, Pink and Queen Latifah who talk about what they’ve accomplished despite the obstacles — people who said they couldn’t achieve certain feats because they were women.

“I heard that girls couldn’t rap — I rapped. Girls couldn’t own businesses — I own my own business,” Queen Latifah said in the video, while the words “challenge everything” and “be you” appeared in the background.

Both commercial campaigns are setting aside business-minded, profit-pursuing attitudes to inspire a different kind of action: empowerment.

But while Under Armour’s com-

mercial truly inspires women and men to pursue goals even if an entire industry tells you you cannot, CoverGirl’s “Girls Can” commercial — despite its seeming intentions — goes awry and not only debunks the feminist movement but also reinforces the double standard placed on women today.

Why does Under Armour succeed while CoverGirl fails?

The difference lies in the companies’ industries. Under Armour is an athletic-technology retailer that targets both men and women and is part of an industry where gender equality has made great strides.

CoverGirl, one of the leading cosmetic companies in the industry, primarily targets women and is a strong source of contention among many feminists who believe cosmetic companies prey on women’s insecurities to make profits.

The problem with a cosmetic company promoting female empowerment is the internal contradiction, the fundamental paradox that reinforces the societal pressures placed on women: be successful, but be thin and pretty; traverse whatever industry you’d like as long as you wear eyeliner, mascara, foundation, blush and lipstick. Be you, but be a prettier version of you.

But the priorities of successful women are not to be “easy, breezy and beautiful,” but rather to be taken seriously and treated equally, regardless of attractiveness. Stanford University law professor Deborah Rhode wrote in “The Beauty Bias,” “I don’t wear makeup nor do I wish to spend 20 minutes applying it. The quality of my teaching shouldn’t depend on the color of my lipstick or whether I’ve got mascara on. We like individuals in the job market to be

judged on the basis of competence, not cosmetics.”

CoverGirl’s message would have more power if the company challenged the notion that attractiveness simply correlates to success.

But because an empowerment message along these lines would discourage sales of CoverGirl products, the company won’t change anything.

While I applaud CoverGirl’s attempts to empower women, some companies should leave the empowering to others like Under Armour whose brand and commercial impacts all people and sends a message we all need to hear: even if you don’t blend in with an industry’s superficial ideals, you can still succeed and excel.

Write to Jess at jnc34@pitt.edu.

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September 11, 2014 | The Pitt News | www.pittnews.com

Letter to the Editor

To the editorial staff of The Pitt News,

I would like to commend the editorial staff of The Pitt News for using their platform to address an issue that’s incredibly pertinent to much of college-aged students’ social interactions: male entitlement. Unfortunately, 20-something-year-olds typically don’t realize that this can come in the form of not only drunkenly accosting women in Steel Cactus or catcalling from your porch in South Oakland but also in the form of someone thinking that, perhaps because they are a “nice guy,” they deserve a woman. All of the above stem from a psychological degradation of women that reduces them to nothing more than a sexual object — something that can be won or something that is owed to them. Unfortunately, very few men in college will be exposed to such viewpoints without taking any sort of class that focuses on gender or women’s studies, leaving their culturally-ingrained, yet unconscious, misogynistic tendencies intact. And, to that end, I find great value as a reader in Wednesday’s editorial in that, hopefully, it delivers its poignant message to anyone who doesn’t seem to understand that male entitlement is not only real but a real problem.

Thank you kindly.

Matt Singer

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September 11, 2014 | The Pitt News | www.pittnews.com

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ARTS and ENTERTAINMENT

Correction

In an article published Tuesday, The Pitt News reported that DiCesare-Engler Productions “collapsed.” SFX Entertainment bought out DiCesare-Engler Productions, and it then turned into Clear Channel Media and Entertainment. The Pitt News also reported that Bill Drusky held a charity event for Joey Fabus’ uncle. Drusky did not hold a charity event for Fabus’ uncle. The Pitt News regrets these errors.

FEATURE

From left: Producer Chris Moore, Martemucci, Executive Producer Carl Kurlander and Dawson at the show’s premiere. Photo credit to Suellen Fitzsimmons

Pair of directors film same script in Pittsburgh for ‘The Chair’ Kat Prosachick For The Pitt News

Imagine your favorite movie — “The Notebook,” “Rocky,” “Goodfellas” — if it were directed by someone else. Chances are, it might have a radically different visual style, even if the script was still the same.

What we now consider classics could be found at the bottom of the bargain bin.

A new Starz reality competition, “The Chair,” brings this very scenario to the small screen.

The show is a unique show-business experiment that tries to find out what will happen if two directors are handed

the same script, given a couple rules and told to make their own adaptations. The results, which were filmed in Pittsburgh, could result in career springboards for the two first-time directors, Shane Dawson and Anna Martemucci.

They were given a script written by Dan Schoffer, a writer and actor, and had to keep their movies 85 minutes long and rated R or less. Other requirements had the directors keep the original character names for easy audience comparisons and stay within the budget of $850,000. Once the two films hit theaters in New York and Los Angeles, the winner will be voted on by audiences and receive $250,000 at the

end of the show’s first season.

Last Thursday, “The Chair” held its premiere event at SouthSide Works Cinema, and many of the cast and crew members were in attendance.

Dawson, unrecognizable with his new do, is a YouTube star with more than 10 million subscribers to his three channels.

He began making his own videos in 2006 and has since become a web celebrity.

“It wasn’t a hard transition between directing YouTube videos and the feature film, but it was a lot more pressure,” Dawson said. “My YouTube videos were produced using my own money, and this film was produced with other people’s money,

which adds a certain amount of stress.”

His film is called “Not Cool,” and while directing it, Dawson wanted to make sure it was resonant with the current generation by creating a film that was crazy, funny and a “blend of the dramatic.”

“This film meant everything to me.

I know that sounds cliched, but it did. I was proving to myself and the world that I could be a director,” Dawson said. “This experience put me out of my comfort zone because it wasn’t the YouTube me.”

Martemucci started her career as a writer and explained on “The Chair” that

The Chair

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September 11, 2014 | The Pitt News | www.pittnews.com MUSIC

Time Capsule: Arcade Fireʼs masterpiece found medium between intimacy and stadium-ambitions Dan Willis Staff Writer

T ime Capsule is a new series for The Pitt News that commemorates seminal releases in entertainment at or around a milestone anniversary. As the years pass, a work can gain greater context or significance than when it was first released. This retrospective series will strive to illuminate our favorite pieces of pop culture 10, 20 or 50 years after their debut.

When I, and surely others, started actively listening to independently released music, it was because a perfect storm was brewing — the perfect storm of 2004.

We had the wide theatrical release of “Garden State,” whose Grammy-winning soundtrack introduced America to a little band called The Shins. We had the sudden influx of bands like The Polyphonic Spree, The Flaming Lips and Bright Eyes on televised concert specials and late-night musical guest slots.

But most of all, we had releases like Franz Ferdinand’s self-titled debut, Modest Mouse’s Good News for People

Who Love Bad News and the granddaddy of them all: Arcade Fire’s Funeral, an album with so much immediate yet lasting appeal and undeniable indie cred, it won the band both the No. 2 spot on Pitchfork’s favorite albums of the decade, along with the No. 151 spot on Rolling Stone’s 2005 list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. A publication with an obvious, titular bias toward the triedand-true called these young Canadians’ debut the 151st greatest album of all time, just one year after it came out.

And across the pond, the impact was just as intense. In 2013, NME , a British publication founded a full 15 years before Rolling Stone, called it the 13th best of all time.

Funeral shook the world, and the discussion surrounding the album developed a whole linguistic universe unto itself, full of words and phrases like “dangerous,” “passionate,” “brave,” “deeply emotional,” “euphoric,” “hopeful,” “uplifting” and of course “urgent.”

And let me remind you that this was the year of Zach Braff hollering into

Arcade

Arcade Fire, before their arena tours. Photo via Arcade Fire’s Facebook page

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September 11, 2014 | The Pitt News | www.pittnews.com FROM PAGE 6

ARCADE the infinite abyss of his wasted years, the Polyphonic Spree practicing their car-commercial-ready sun salutes and Conor Oberst kissing strange, emaciated girls with heavy hearts. If an album came along and made us resort to this much hyperbole, this much conviction, this much sheer belief in a single album, it must have been the paramount of

sincerity and urgency. It hit hard, its sudden, de facto legacy was immediately cemented into law by critics. But were we right to be so floored, or were we just in the middle of a year-long honeymoon period?

To answer this question, I listened to the album for the first time in at least a year, and I discovered that surrounding Funeral’s core of concentrated emotion are some seriously cunning songs that promiscuously borrowed from the widest array of the world’s most infectious

music. In other words, it’s not unfathomable that the same band responsible for stadium-sized albums like The Suburbs and Reflektor made the rustic yet ethereal collection of earnest love letters and morbid journal entries that comprise Funeral. The sternum-shaking groove behind “Haiti” would not be out of place on an M.I.A. track, while the booms and claps on the shout-along “Wake Up”, seem sort of like an indie rock response to “We Will Rock You”.

That’s what made Funeral such a

7 magical and difficult-to-follow album.

It created a feedback loop between intimacy and outwardness that could have only been generated by a young, viciously ambitious, internationally assembled band scrambling for meaning in the chaotic cloud of love, death and summer heat that plagued them during the recording process. It’s an airing of struggle that works as both an imagined heart-to-heart with frontman Win Butler and a thousand-strong group therapy session.

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THE CHAIR she always wanted to be a director but wasn’t sure if she could do it. She has a YouTube channel called Periods. Films, a collection of comedies, with Victor Quinaz, who is her partner and husband.

These short films feature Martemucci herself, her brother-in-law Philip Quinaz and Zachary Quinto, who is a producer on “The Chair.”

September 11, 2014 | The Pitt News | www.pittnews.com “Directing this film was the realization of a life-long dream. I wanted to do this for a long time, but it seemed too big a dream,” Martemucci said. “I did it even though I was terrified, and it turned out to be everything I wanted and more.”

She aims for her film, “Hollidaysburg,” to be a teen movie that hasn’t been done before, with female characters who are complex, weird and interesting. Martemucci said she wanted to make a “cozy” film.

“Very often, I’m in the mood for that

place to feel safe and happy and like nothing too terrible will happen. These are the movies I rewatch,” Martemucci said.

“And rewatchability was a major concern for me.”

Trisha Simmons, a Hollywood actress in Martemucci’s film, didn’t necessarily expect to be filming the movie in Pennsylvania.

“I auditioned in L.A., and at the time, I didn’t know they were looking for people from Pittsburgh,” Simmons said.

Simmons thought Martemucci, who

she referred to as a “real artist,” adjusted well to feature films.

“She liked to add scenes last minute and wanted to keep changing things — make it faster to make sure we had it right,” Simmons said.

Every film is a collaboration, and in the case of “Hollidaysburg,” Martemucci believes that talent has a way of compounding on itself.

“Work with talented people, and you will appear [to be] talented,” Martemucci said.

September 11, 2014 | The Pitt News | www.pittnews.com

WOMEN’S SOCCER

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SPORTS

Needing to regain its edge, Pitt readies for VCU Kevin Wheeler Staff Writer

As the Panthers enter their eighth game of the 2014 season, head coach Greg Miller is ready to stop blaming his team’s youth for Pitt’s mistakes.

Miller shuffled a few of his young players in and out of the starting lineup Sunday in Pitt’s loss to La Salle, and similar swapping is likely to occur this Friday at Ambrose Urbanic Field at the Petersen Sports Complex when the Panthers (4-3) take on Virginia Commonwealth University at 7 p.m.

Miller removed freshman forward Taylor Pryce and midfielder Ashley Moreira from the starting lineup against La Salle in favor of veteran forward Alex Charlebois, a redshirt senior, and midfielder Hanna Hannesdottir to send a message. The change resonates with

Miller’s desire for his players to be more aggressive in all phases of the game, and the shuffling of the lineup just might give him that result in the long run.

“Some of them are more comfortable, some are more apprehensive or just coasting along trying to find out what their role is and how much more they can take on,” Miller said of his firstyear players. “We’ve tried to harp on them that they have the green light to take risks and get after it a little more.

We’re seven games into the season, we can’t use the excuse that we’re inexperienced anymore.”

Hannesdottir, a freshman, has made an impact through the first seven games this season and quickly earned herself a starting position. She has had three assists and one goal so far, and has earned the respect of her team.

“Hanna did a nice job of seizing the

opportunity [to start on Sunday] and right now I think she’s our best soccer player,” Miller said.

“She’s consistently giving us good possessions and good attacking and she’s getting more and more comfortable in her environment.”

Hannesdottir will start again on Friday against the Rams (1-3-2), where Miller hopes she will continue to contribute more of the same type of play she’s shown so far. The praise didn’t stop with Miller Jackie Poucel’s younger teammates have struggled — captain Jackie Poucel with consistency. Jeff Ahearn | Staff Photographer agreed with him.

“Hanna has been great,” Poucel said.

WSOC 10 “She has always been a hard worker

Panthers prepare for their toughest test of young season Mark Powell Staff Writer

After a weekend road trip with two games, the Pitt men’s soccer team aims to pull off the upset in its first ACC matchup of the season against North Carolina on Friday.

Pitt (2-1) had mild success on the trip, registering close to the same amount of shots as its opponents in both games. Against William and Mary, the Panthers back four made numerous mistakes, leaving goalkeeper Dan Lynd one on one in several cases.

While Pitt made numerous offensive pushes, players couldn’t finish close to goal, which led to the 4-0 final scoreline.

“The game wasn’t as lopsided in terms of the play, but the score was, obviously,” coach Joe Luxbacher said. “We made some mistakes, and they caught us.”

The defense was not a problem against Longwood, as Pitt stifled the Lancers and held them scoreless. Hamish Law scored the lone goal of the game for the Panthers off the bench

in the 1-0 victory.

“I watched the team struggle on Friday,” Law said. “It was unbelievable to come off the bench and score like that. All the hard work paid off for the team.”

While it was important for Pitt to pick up a result on the road, UNC may be the toughest opponent the Panthers play all year.

Pitt is a considerable underdog in this contest, coming off an ACC season in which it failed to win one game.

Last season Pitt’s offensive woes cost the team immensely — the Panthers were shut out in twelve games, including a defeat at home to UNC. North Carolina’s back line may be even stronger this season, as they have yet to give up more than one goal in any of their regular season games.

“It’s just a matter of getting the ball up quickly and attacking as quickly as possible,” Law said, regarding the Panthers’ offensive strategy.

The Panthers will have to avoid the de-

fensive miscues that plagued them against William and Mary, their toughest opponent to date.

But it’s a new season, and the Panthers believe that they are a more skilled side than the one that lost 1-0 at home to North Carolina last season. Pitt showed moments of promise in the early stages of the season, relying on ball possession and quick numbers moving forward to register as many offensive opportunities as possible.

In their first three regular season games, the Panthers have combined to score four goals. Last season, Pitt did not reach the fourgoal mark until the seventh game of the year.

The Tar Heels enter the game ranked third in the country in the latest polls after registering a 3-1 record in their first four games.

Their only loss came in a highly competitive game against top ranked UCLA in the second game of the season, while they’ve beaten two ranked opponents in Cal-Berkeley and Old Dominion University.

UNC is led offensively by forward Andy

Craven and midfielders Rob Lovejoy and Omar Holness. Craven and Lovejoy have combined for 10 of the Tar Heels’ 13 points, while Holness picked up his first cap for the Jamaican national team on Tuesday in an international friendly against Canada.

“We’re going to have to play really good team defense,” Luxbacher said. “We’re going to have to keep the ball once we get it, not just give the ball back.”

Holding down the Tar Heels’ star-studded offense will be a tough task for Pitt’s back line, but senior defender Julian Dickenson believes the Panthers have as good of chance as any team.

“They’re a great team, but every team we play in the ACC especially is a great team,” Dickenson said. “We have a plan, and we’ve been looking at a lot of scouting reports on them. We’re just going to take it to them like any other team.”

The game starts at 7 p.m. and will be televised on ESPN3.

FROM PAGE 9

WSOC

and is extremely smart on the ball. She’s fully capable, especially when she’s in the attacking mid position, to win games for us.”

Those younger players who are giving the proper effort are the ones who rise to the top of the depth chart and receive notice from their older teammates and the coaching staff. Those who are not are buried on the bench, and they need to respond before it is too late for them to make an impression on Miller.

“The only thing standing in [the freshmen’s] way is confidence,” Poucel said. “They need to believe in themselves and take risks. No one can ever be disappointed in a player that just works.”

The Panthers had Monday off to recover from the weekend and will have had three full days of practice to prepare for VCU. Tuesday involved some technical work on offense, while Wednesday’s practice consisted of defensive work — mainly the organization of the back line. Thursday will be devoted to set plays, specifically corner kicks and free kicks, so the players don’t do anything too strenuous the day before a game.

Tactically, the Panthers are working to improve their execution and attacking in the final third of the field, which is the space stretching approximately 35 yards from the opponent’s goal.

“We’ve got to be a little bit more dynamic and a little bit more sophisticated with the way we’re getting behind teams and creating scoring chances,” Miller said. “We have to be more settled than

September 11, 2014 | The Pitt News | www.pittnews.com we were over the weekend.”

As far as preparation for VCU specifically, the Panthers have not done much critical studying on their tactics but are approaching the game with an aggressive mindset. This is the first weekend of the season where Pitt will not have to prepare for two games, so the Panthers are excited about having a full week of practice and training to prepare for only one contest.

“We have been less focused on the specifics of VCU’s play and more concerned with fixing and growing in certain aspects of our game,” sophomore captain and forward Siobhan McDonough said. “I am sure before the game we will go over VCU in more detail, but so far our focus has been on developing overall as a team and individuals.”

Although the players aren’t briefed on VCU quite yet, Miller has already noticed some things about the Rams for which he must prepare his team.

“They have a few kids up front that are very fast, so we have to plan for that kind of speed,” Miller said. “And then they have a dynamic midfield that’s very athletic that can ride you and build a play from that part of the field.”

Pitt’s week of practice also emphasized the importance of not playing with a “reactionary” style, Miller said.

Instead of waiting for plays to unfold in front of them, Miller wants his players to become more proactive in anticipating plays on the field. This focuses on small details within the game and, once again, aggression to be able to prevent a quick VCU lineup from getting behind their defensive back line.

“We’re holding people more accountable for all of the little things they’re

doing,” Miller said. “Are people slide tackling or winning 50/50 balls out of the air to make us more engaged in what we’re doing so that we can get good possessions and also prevent shots?”

With Friday marking the Panthers’ final game before ACC play begins, the team is eager for a win to rebound from its somewhat lackluster performance on Sunday. Whether it is their youth, fatigue or being on the road, Miller has ruled out excuses and expects his team to perform at a high level against VCU.

The Pitt News Crossword, 9/11/2014

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ACROSS 1 Caesar in “Rise of the Planet of the Apes,” for one 6 Road __ 9 Long-legged wader 14 Halos 15 Bold alternative 16 Really ticked 17 Start of a riddle 18 “Shirt Front and Fork” artist 19 Well-mannered fellows 20 Summertime woe 23 “__ Shorty”: Elmore Leonard novel 24 Sumptuous meals 27 Some microbrews 29 Rm. coolers 30 Riddle, part two 32 Big piece 34 Kazakhstan, once: Abbr.

35 Polite gesture 39 Chevrolet SUV 41 Mystery guest moniker 43 Highs and lows, perhaps 44 Suppress 46 KOA visitors 48 Mice, to owls 49 Riddle, part three 52 Buddy 53 Monkey wrench wielder?

56 Catch in a web 58 Many a lap dog 59 Coat closet locale, often 61 Dropped the ball 63 Sellout sign, briefly 64 End of the riddle 68 Lagoon border 69 Goad, with “on” 70 Heroic stories 71 Like a string bean 72 Burnt __ crisp 73 Unauthorized disclosures

9/19/14

By Jacob Stulberg

DOWN 1 Farm field cry 2 “That’s a surprise” 3 Lyricist Gershwin 4 British subject?

5 Currency replaced by the euro 6 Beef, e.g.

7 Answer to the riddle 8 Melonlike fruit 9 Headlight setting 10 “Let us part, __ the season of passion forget us”: Yeats 11 Singer’s asset 12 River mammal 13 Makes a home 21 Egyptian snakes 22 Actor Green of “Robot Chicken” 24 Doesn’t take anything in 25 Fanfare 26 Tokyo-based brewery 28 Bar, in law 31 Suffix with Mao 33 Smashing, at the box office

Thursday’s Puzzle Solved

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36 Singer with the Mel-Tones 37 A muse may inspire them 38 “Fooled you!”

40 With joy 42 Louis __, eponym of the Kentucky city 45 All square 47 Lose sleep (over) 50 Square one 51 Tooth covering

9/19/14

53 Pinch 54 Cardiologist’s concern 55 Lakers coach __ Scott 57 Nearsighted one 60 Activity on a mat 62 Image on the Michigan state flag 65 Through 66 “Gross!”

67 Small opening?