9-19-2016

The Pitt News

The independent student newspaper of the University of Pittsburgh | PIttnews.com | September 19, 2016 | Volume 107 | Issue 28

ROTC training shifts focus Rachel Glasser For the Pitt News

“I went down and put my name in,” Walylko said. “I went out there and just tried to have fun.”

It wasn’t until several days later, while playing guitar with a fellow student after class, that Walylko realized he had won.

“Someone came by and was like, ‘Hey, aren’t you Johnny? Aren’t you the guy who won Battle of the Bands?’ And it just blew my mind.

It was an out-of-body experience,” Walylko

Cadets in the Army ROTC Three Rivers Battalion spent their Saturday addressing the prevalence of sexual assault and suicide in the military.

At the first leadership lab of the year — a weekly workshop to develop management skills among future military leaders — 185 members of the Army ROTC gathered to discuss sexual assault and suicide prevention. The lab is mandatory for all cadets in the battalion, which includes students from 11 colleges in the area and has headquarters at Pitt.

Sergeant First Class James Henderson, a military science instructor helping to lead the sessions Saturday, said the army’s sexual assault programming is beginning to focus on eradicating the behaviors that shape sexual predators.

“For years, we talked about don’t be a victim, don’t go to dark places by yourself, don’t wear provocative clothing,” Henderson said. “We essentially told everyone how not to be a victim.

The Army finally is focusing on preventing the behavior rather than eliminating victims.”

A 2014 RAND military survey found that 22 percent of active-duty women and 7 percent of men may have experienced some form of sexual harassment that year. Additionally, 1 percent of men and 4.9 percent of enlisted women had experienced sexual assault in 2014, compared to 0.06 percent of the general population over 12 years old who reported experiencing sexual as-

See Fall Fest on page 2

See ROTC on page 4

Rae Sremmurd headlined this year’s Fall Fest on Bigelow Boulevard. Meghan Sunners SENIOR STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Former athlete, Navy SEAL Walylko opens Fest David Robinson

the closed-off Bigelow Boulevard.

Walylko, the 26 year-old who won Pitt’s Battle of the Bands competition on Sept. 8, After a shortened career in baseball and a kicked off the show with a relaxing folk style stint training as a Navy SEAL, Pitt senior Johnthat stood in sharp contrast to the rambuncny Walylko picked up a guitar and an opening tious nature of hip-hop duo and headliner gig at this year’s Fall Fest.

Rae Sremmurd, best known for their 2015 hit Pitt welcomed about 6,500 students to the single “No Flex Zone.” annual celebration Saturday afternoon. SponWinning Battle of the Bands was a rush for sored by the Pitt Program Council, the seasonWalylko — he only found out about the comal event showcased music acts Rae Sremmurd, petition on the day he competed.

FRENSHIP, NAWAS and Walylko this year on

For The Pitt News

News

See Online

For report on food committee meeting

See Online

For interactive crime map

Bernie Sanders visits CMU, endorses Katie McGinty Amina Doghri For The Pitt News

Add Sen. Bernie Sanders to the list of high-profile Democrats lining up behind Katie McGinty.

The former presidential candidate stumped for McGinty, the Democratic Pennsylvania Senate candidate, at Carnegie Mellon University Friday night.

“Our job is to elect Katie, our job is to elect Secretary Clinton … our job is to transform the United States of America,” Sanders, D-Va., said.

McGinty, who’s running against standing Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey, spoke to a crowd of about 800 people about Planned Parenthood, education reform, environmental protection and equal pay — issues she’s focused on more Bernie Sanders spoke on CMU’s campus Friday, promoting unity among the Demo- intensely since the close of the Democratic National Convention cratic Party. John Hamilton STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Fall Fest, pg. 1 said.

At 1 p.m., Walylko, known by his stage name Johnny Wall, started the show, coming onstage with nothing but his guitar. The selfdescribed singer-songwriter, split his acoustic folk melodies between monologues to the audience about what he finds appealing and engaging about music.

The senior, who transferred from PittJohnstown in the spring of 2014, said his musical inspiration comes from Indie pop singer Jack Johnson. “[Johnson] understands the beauty in life comes through simplicity — it’s not through money and through fame,” Walylko said.

Walylko exclusively plays his own songs because he said he never had the taste for covers. In “Stuck in My Head,” an upbeat number, Walylko’s tells the story of meeting his girlfriend, underlining the awkward nervousness of new romance.

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Symone Quinn, a first-year at Pitt, said the opener’s style was reminiscent of Never Shout Never, an American Indie musician known for his songs “Trouble” and “On the Brightside.” “[Walylko is] a really vibey type person — it’s a nice mood,” Quinn said.

While they waited and vibed to Johnny Wall’s music, students had access to games including cornhole and a test-your-strength game. The Tasty Tacos food truck provided free brisket tacos and buffalo cauliflower tacos, and students could also get free T-shirts by playing Mario on a Wii U at a video game table. Early in the afternoon, Truth X LIVE brought therapy dogs to the event.

Onstage, Walylko was performing with a microphone for one of only a few times in his life. He found it a sharp contrast from the Mount Washington street performances he’s used to.

“I’ve played in front of a mic before, and I never felt good about it,” Walylko said. “I like to do a lot of street performances.”

Phil Thompson, communications coordi-

nator of Pitt’s music department and Walylko’s music theory instructor, said Walylko has notable persistence and puts a significant amount of effort into the tunes he brings to class.

“The thing that’s really obvious to me is his openness to music,” Thompson said.

Though Walylko has been playing guitar since 2008 — when he taught himself to write his own songs — music hasn’t always been his primary passion.

The transfer senior attempted a career in baseball, having attended IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida, a boarding college-preparatory school specializing in athletics, before a shoulder injury in 2006 took him out of the game. With that dream out of reach, Walylko pursued a different path. In 2009, he began training as a Navy SEAL candidate. But an EKG revealed he had Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome –– a form of tachycardia, or rapid heartbeat–– and discontinued his training.

“It was hard. I was trying to find an identity,” Walylko said.

After his medical discharge, Walylko be-

September 19, 2016

in July.

“None of this is politics or academics,” McGinty said about equal pay. “This is about families.”

After a post-DNC bump in the polls, the Pennsylvania Senate race has tightened in recent weeks as out-of-state funding and support pours in.

A Muhlenberg College/Morning Call poll released Sept. 16, for example, placed McGinty five points ahead of Toomey, a lead that’s shrunk since her late July high. In recent weeks, the two candidates have traded leads in the polls –– as recently as a Sept. 7 Quinnipiac poll, Toomey had a lead over McGinty by one point. Across all polls, McGinty maintains a 0.2 lead, according to Real Clear Politics.

See Sanders on page 5

gan practicing mixed martial arts and wrestling at Pitt Johnstown after a cardiac ablation fixed his condition. In 2013 he went through Army Infantry Basic Training and is still enlisted in the National Guard.

He came to Oakland in the spring of 2014 and is currently a senior at Pitt studying nonfiction writing, though he’s decided to stay an extra year for a degree in music, his newest passion.

A man who’s walked several different paths, Walylko said he learned from his SEAL training to embrace adversity in life.

“The mindset of the SEALs is priceless,” Walylko said.

Fall Fest might have been his big debut — to a crowd somewhere in the thousands depending on the time of day — but Walylko said he’s just getting started.

“I have high expectations, so I feel like [this] was a good starting point, but I know I can perform better,” Walylko said. “I love being onstage — I love the experience.”

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Speak Out event addresses sexual assault Wesley Hood

For The Pitt News Youth leadership mentor Tabitha MayTolub told Pitt students Sunday morning that through personal growth and conversation, they could begin to change the atmosphere on campus.

May-Tolub, co-founder and CEO of Roots and Wings, Training and Consultation, a Boston-based agency that provides training and consultation for youth, spoke to about 30 students at the inaugural Panther Speak Out Day. The event, held on the third floor of the Cathedral of Learning, aimed to initiate conversation about sexual assault on campus. Students Engaging in Conversations About Consent and Sexuality — a student-led organization that Lecturers discussed sexual assault and consent at the first ever Panther hosts these and similar conversations — part- Speak Out Day. Edward Major STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER nered with Roots and Wings and the Title IX sparked by widely-covered incidents like that of cent of male undergraduates on Pitt’s campus office to host the speaker.

Brock Turner, the Stanford student who sexually have experienced forced sexual penetration or “I really love being present for events like assaulted a woman behind a dumpster after a sexual touching. Those numbers are even highthese, because they help not only individuals party. According to the Association of Ameri- er in the LGBTQ+ community. grow, but also campuses grow as a whole,” May“We want to get to the point where we no can Universities’ 2016 Campus Climate Survey Tolub said. on Sexual Assault and Sexual Misconduct, 10.1 longer have to have conversations about these Sexual assault has become an issue at the percent of female undergraduates and 6.2 per- statistics and these topics,” said James Kirwan, forefront of American higher education —

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September 19, 2016

a senior political science and religious studies major.

The theme of the day — “to be” — encouraged students to be more than just themselves, by becoming a voice, a communicator or simply a supportive friend, according to May-Tolub.

Jillian Bunis, a senior nursing major and Kirwan formed SECCS in October 2015 with five other students after noticing what they said was a lack of space on campus to speak openly about these issues.

“We weren’t happy with the fact that there wasn’t really any discussion-type forum relating to sexual violence, assault and consent on campus,” Kirwan said.

Kirwan, president of SECCS, said the organization’s goal is to eliminate the discomfort surrounding open discussion of sexual violence and related issues by making these conversations commonplace.

The four-hour event was broken down into hour-long group lectures, followed by smaller, more intimate group conversations with about 10 people.

In a discussion activity called “If You Really See Speak Out on page 4

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ROTC, pg. 1 sault or rape in 2014, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Sergeant First Class David Butler, a military science instructor, said numbers don’t often speak to reality because members of the military can be hesitant to report sexual assault.

“Sometimes [sexual assault] isn’t reported.

Male to male contact a lot of times isn’t reported,” Butler said. “Female to male isn’t a lot of times, because they don’t want their name out there, their story out there.”

According to data from the U.S. Department of Defense and the RAND Military Workplace Study, 77 percent of sexual assault cases in 2015 were not reported.

In groups of 20 to 25, the cadets rotated through sessions such as the Sexual Harassment/Assault Response Prevention program, which focused on consent and how to make restricted and unrestricted sexual assault reports.

A restricted report keeps the incident and identity of the victim private — in this case, the perpetrator is not prosecuted. In an unrestricted report, the incident is made public and an investigation is opened. A victim who files a restricted report may convert the report to an

unrestricted report later on if he or she chooses.

ROTC cadet Brittany Clegg, a sophomore psychology and accounting double major, said the doctrine the U.S. Army employs for handling sexual assault prevention and incidence treatment has made her feel more safe.

“It’s nice to know that you have options whenever something like [sexual assault] happens. It’s not just like you’re closed off,” Clegg said.

Marcello Defay, a junior psychology major at Pitt in ROTC, emphasized that the lessons learned on Saturday –– specifically issues addressed in the sexual assault prevention session –– should apply to everyone, not just ROTC cadets.

“Obviously, there are rules that they want to implement in the army, but they’re also things that apply to everyday life,” Defay said.

Suicide prevention sessions helped cadets learn to recognize at-risk individuals and cope with stressors in their own lives.

In 2015, 266 active duty military members committed suicide, according to the Department of Defense Quarterly Suicide Report for 2015.

For every 100,000 people in the United States general population, there were about 13 suicides, according to 2014 statistics from Cen-

ters for Disease Control and Prevention. For active service members in the U.S. military in 2014, there were almost 20 suicides per 100,000 people, 21.9 for the reserve and 19.4 for the National Guard, according to the Department of Defense 2014 Suicide Event Report.

According to the Department of Veterans Affairs, of the 41,435 suicides committed by U.S. adults, 18 percent — or 7,403 — were identified as veterans of U.S. military service.

In the session Saturday, students were taught to recognize signs that others might be considering suicide and how to act appropriately to help them, utilizing a protocol known as ACE: Ask, Care, Escort. In addition, the session discussed how cadets’ own life stressors could accumulate and grow into long term stressors.

Emily Gallagher, a third-year occupational therapy major at Duquesne University, said she liked how the examples were tailored to topics relevant to students, both involved in or separate from ROTC. “A lot of other students, friends who aren’t in the program, are going through the same hardships. [The instructors] do a good job of creating scenarios of student life outside of ROTC life,” she said.

Speak Out, pg. 3 Knew Me” students sat in smaller groups and finished the statement with “You’d know that ...” and then something personal, often relating to sexuality, harassment or assault.

Christina Potenza, a first-year art history and neuroscience major, said that speaking openly has motivated her to reach out to others.

“Being a survivor of sexual assault makes me want to not only help facilitate the conversations about it but also ensure that they are happening more and more,” Potenza said.

Just over 12 percent of transgender, genderqueer and gender nonconforming undergraduate respondents to the AAU survey reported forced sexual penetration or sexual touching, a percentage that doubled that of cisgender respondents.

For this reason, Sara Yablonski, a junior, said it’s important that everyone is included in conversations like Sunday’s.

“I want to see how conversations about these topics are progressing and if they are inclusive of the LGBTQ+ community,” Yablonski said. “I want to be able to show that these conversations are not only important for heterosexual individuals, but individuals of all orientations.”

The Pitt News SuDoku 9/19/16 courtesy of dailysudoku.com

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September 19, 2016

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Sanders, pg. 2 Sanders’ support for McGinty comes after both President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden endorsed her run in March, one month before the April primaries.

Also joining Sanders and McGinty at the event were Braddock Mayor John Fetterman, who ran against McGinty in the primary election, and Pittsburgh City Council member Dan Gilman, who stressed the need for Democratic unity.

Since Sanders lost the Democratic primary, he’s done the same, encouraging his steadfast supporters — including members of the “Bernie or Bust” movement — to get behind the Democratic candidates still in the race.

Andrew Dow, a Pitt first-year majoring in history, said he attended the event primarily for Sanders’ speech but intended to get more familiar with McGinty in the process.

“I came to hear more about her, and [Sanders] also gives a great recommendation,” Dow said.

Some members of the audience didn’t think Sanders’ support for McGinty or Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton came soon enough.

“Why has Bernie been so quiet till now?” said Alan Colker, 85, of Squirrel Hill. “He’s a popular guy with young people, but now there are more young people supporting the Green Party than the Democrats. He needs to move more people to the Hillary camp.”

Like many Clinton supporters, Pitt alum Larry Kelso, 61, of Shaler, Pennsylvania, worried that without backing from former Sanders supporters, Republican presidential candidate Donald

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Trump might have a chance at winning.

Security confiscated Kelso’s cardboard sign that read, “Trump’s a CON, DON THE CON” outside the event, but his opinion remained strong.

“When push comes to shove, we cannot have Trump,” Kelso said. “[McGinty] stands with the Democratic Party — she’s with Hillary.”

Following the far left rhetoric of Sanders’ campaign, McGinty said that, if elected, she would use her position to shut down the greedy nature of Wall Street and the lack of mobility among

social classes.

“Your zip code is not your destiny,” McGinty said.

Sanders followed McGinty by addressing the slowly shrinking middle class as a result of Republican-favored “trickle down economics” –– an economic belief that if tax breaks are given to top earners in the economy, their extra money will stimulate economic growth and bolster the lower and middle classes.

In reference to this policy, Sanders said, “Enough is enough.”

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The Vermont senator also spoke about raising the minimum wage and providing increased legal and health benefits for the LGBTQ+ community.

Throughout his speech, Sanders encouraged the crowd, especially young attendees, to get involved in the political process.

“We’re talking about the future of Donald Trump. We are talking about saying ‘no’ to racism and bigotry,” Sanders said. “We are talking about saving this: an economy that works for working people and not just the one percent.”

5

Opinions

column

from the editorial board

Wait for answers after New York bombing When news breaks of a bombing or explosion in a U.S. city, one word stands out in Americans’ minds: Terrorism.

So Saturday night, when 29 people were injured in an explosion in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, New York, that one word quickly jumped into national headlines.

Thankfully, the victims of the explosion Saturday are out of the hospital already and the explosion left no fatalities. A second device was removed from the scene just four blocks away before it could go off. But the word remained: Terrorism. In this case, because New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo used it.

“A bomb exploding in New York is obviously an act of terrorism, but it’s not linked to international terrorism — in other words we find no ISIS connection,” Cuomo said Sunday.

Moments like these, in the aftermath of violent attacks, have the potential to define our country.

Over-reactionary tweets and Facebook posts published without facts or evidence give heed to religious and racial division in this country, often by pinning bomb scares on religious zealots. Let’s remember that there has been no confirmed perpetrator in this attack.

We don’t have the facts. And we definitely shouldn’t jump to assumptions.

Reactionary and vigilante violence is not a justifiable response to fear, even though it inevitably happens.

According to data from the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino, hate crimes against Muslims nearly tripled after the Paris and San Bernardino, California, terror attacks in 2015. While anti-Muslim hate crimes

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average around 12 per month and 150 per year, at least 37 suspected hate crimes were reported in the month after the attacks.

Again, there have been no named perpetrators — of any religion, ethnicity or country of origin — named in these attacks yet. And even when the attackers are found, it is not the responsibility of individual citizens to take the law into their own hands, nor is the belief of one person representative of the views of an entire group.

Immediately following the bombing Saturday night, the FBI and city leaders had to quell fears of an ISIS attack. Too often, Muslims are automatically tied to such violence as soon as the word “terrorism” is uttered. According to the FBI, 94 percent of terrorist attacks carried out in the United States from 1980 to 2005 were by non-Muslims, so the archetypal image of a domestic terrorist needn’t be tied to any religion, race or gender.

News outlets are not immune to the shock value of buzzwords. On the night of the attack, a Washington Post’s headline read: “Explosion that injured 29 in New York ‘obviously an act of terrorism,’ governor says” and a USA Today headline read “Experts say NYC attack was terrorism,” using a snippet of Cuomo’s quote guaranteed to draw readers.

As the New York Times noted, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio avoided using the word “terrorism” to label the attacks to quell nerves in the city and to avoid assigning incorrect blame.

Read the rest online at Pittnews.com.

The Odyssey dilutes journalism

Emily Schoenberger Columnist

When you see a popular article online titled “Why Girls Love the Dad Bod,” you have to read it. Or do you?

This is the headline on the most shared article from the Odyssey Online, an online blogstyle platform where about 14,000 college-aged writers publish stories and get paid based on the number of shares they get on social media, with the aim of bringing campus-related news to all corners of the internet. Contrary to its mission of “facilitating deeper conversation,” the site seems to contribute more to the already over-saturated realm of GIFs, listicles and open letters than to actual intellectual or newsworthy subjects.

In the age of internet media, the Odyssey is a less veritable version of Buzzfeed in a sea of wannabe “news” sites including The Tab, The Black Sheep and Her Campus. The company markets itself as “a social media platform committed to democratizing content creation while personalizing discovery.”

But “articles” like “Sorry I’m a Size 00” make the Odyssey one step above posting unsolicited rants on Facebook. And somehow the guise of a

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Terry Tan SENIOR STAFF ILLUSTRATOR professional platform makes the post even more embarrassing than a Facebook rant.

As the world of journalism continues to transform, media outlets have struggled to find a balance between maintaining substantial journalism and monetizing their platforms through advertisements and subscriptions. Unfortunately, some outlets have never done the former and have only done the latter while continuing to pretend to be an outlet for news and accurate, substantive information. Buzzfeed, for instance, has tried to change its clickbait-centric image by putting together a team of renowned journalists to tackle hard-hitting issues. But websites such as the Odyssey — with more than 30 million monthly visitors, according to the website — only popularize the trend of blog-style entertainment news that adds little to the industry’s integrity.

Although its homepage promotes articles with titles such as “5 Things I Don’t Tell My Mom Often Enough” and “15 Things You Realize As Your Baby Brother Grows Up,” the Odyssey fancies itself a revolutionary local news source. The media company’s website says it was See Schoenberger on page 7

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Schoenberger, pg. 6 “founded to...elevate engagement, by magnifying broader perspectives and facilitating deeper conversations in and about the world.”

But the only deep conversations that actually make their way to the surface of social media are usually fluff pieces on relationships and open letters to oddly vague stereotypes like, “The Girl with the Open Heart.” No reporting, no research, just shameless clickbaiting.

If a reader turns to the Odyssey looking for real community news, they’ll most likely only find aggregated briefs and first-person narratives, like an account of the explosion in Manhattan Saturday night that aggregates three separate New York Times articles and only lists them under a “sources” subhead at the end of the article.

The abundant amount of information on the internet already makes it difficult to identify accurate news from fluff, and websites like the Odyssey needlessly fuel this problem for the sake of profit.

Unlike other blogging and constant-content sites like Medium, the Odyssey does have a substantial editing process that includes community editor in chiefs and professional editors based in New York City. But the site’s mission — to drive social media traffic and push for “trending articles” — lacks credibility. The site does a disservice to readers by focusing its mission on “content” rather than quality journalism.

According to the editorial handbook, “each article should be shared on three or more platforms multiple times a week.” If you’re a college student with any kind of social media account, you probably see at least one link to an Odyssey article every other day, especially if you’re Facebook friends with creators, who are required to promote their writing as much as possible.

While traditional news outlets would love for social media numbers like that, they recognize articles that hold senators and CEOs accountable for their actions aren’t as flashy and shareable as “As much as it may hurt, I’m not afraid of terrorists.”

Whenever I read an article by the Odyssey, the site seems more concerned with traffic than quality, and likely to publish almost anything that could garner shares. Given a staff of roughly 70 full-time, paid editors and a weekly production of 10,000 articles, according to the website, each editor is faced with a mountain of content to correct. In a listicle titled “14 Things Every Odyssey Editor Knows to be True,” an Odyssey editor describes what it’s like when she has “30 articles to edit AND [she] still [hasn’t] written

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[her] own.” Rather than describing the excitement she might feel at seeing one of her stories make a difference or receive an award, she describes the high Odyssey editors feel when one of their writers’ articles is trending on social media, writing “[The editor] can celebrate too because [he or she] had a hand in one of the top articles on the entire site!”

Creators are paid conditionally based on how many shares their articles receive, a model that seems to push for more clickbait than serious content. If creators don’t receive a certain amount of shares or page views, they don’t get paid, but a story that gets more than 1 million page views per month can rake in up to $1,000, according to guidelines from the Odyssey’s pilot reward program.

With over 1,200 “communities” — local chapters with specific editors and writers — the Odyssey claims to focus on local conversations which can be connected to trends and issues throughout the world.

In an interview with The Business Times, Odyssey CEO B. Evan Burns said creators are just required to have a “unique perspective.”

Therein lies the problem. Just because someone wants to write, doesn’t mean he or she has the chops to do it.

According to the handbook, the creators are “the voices of the millennial generation … today’s leaders, visionaries, innovators and thought-provokers.” Apparently today’s visionaries are pondering important subjects like the “10 Qualities That Make Lip Gallagher Absolutely Irresistible.”

If that’s the case, then our generation needs to rethink what we’re imparting on the world.

To Burns’ credit, the Odyssey is managing to succeed where so many other startups have failed. The site claims to have funding of $32 million. Since its launch out of beta in 2014, the amount of creators, communities and article shares has climbed monumentally.

While it’s all well and fine to talk about your feelings — this column is doing exactly that — doing so via the Odyssey discredits the piece entirely. An Odyssey creator would achieve just as much recounting the information that might go into a listicle to a friend.

The Odyssey is representative of the downfall of online journalism, and we shouldn’t buy into it. It’s great that more voices are contributing to the online world, but we need to be sure that these voices are checked, verified and adding value to the media.

And if you’re an Odyssey creator, try channeling your creative urges to a more reputable news site — your readers, and your resumé, will thank you.

The Pitt News

Editor-in-Chief ELIZABETH LEPRO

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Alexandria Stryker | Assistant Copy Emily Brindley | Assistant News Editor Alexa Bakalarski | Assistant News Editor Copy Staff Matt Moret | Assistant Opinions Editor Matthew Maelli Ashwini Sivaganesh | Assistant Sports Editor Amanda Sobczak Bridget Montgomery Michelle Reagle Jordan Mondell | Assistant Visual Editor Corey Foreman Sarah Choflet Emily Hower | Assistant Layout Editor Katie Krater Sydney Mengel Amanda Reed | Online Engagement Editor Kelsey Hunter

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September 19, 2016

student-managed newspaper for the Oakland campus of the University of Pittsburgh. It is pub lished Monday through Friday during the regular school year and Wednesdays during the summer.

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7

Sports

FOOTBALL

Oklahoma State 45 Pitt 38

VOLLEYBALL

MENʼS SOCCER

WOMENʼS SOCCER

Panther Invitational 2-1, Pitt

North Carolina 1 Pitt 0

Louisville 1 Pitt 0

Boyd returns as Pittsburgh opponent Pitt Steve Rotstein Sports Editor

A strong start in former Pitt wide receiver Tyler Boyd’s Heinz Field homecoming turned into a nightmare finish for the Cincinnati Bengals rookie.

Boyd returned home Sunday to the stadium where he spent three years torching secondaries with the Panthers –– this time as a member of the Pittsburgh Steelers’ archrival Bengals. He played well in just the second game of his NFL career, finishing with six catches for 78 yards.

But his last catch is one he’ll wish he could have back.

Boyd caught a pass over the middle coming out of the two-minute warning with the Bengals trailing, 24-16, late in the fourth quarter. As soon as he turned upfield, the Steelers’ fearsome 38-year-old linebacker James Harrison laid a punishing hit on the 6-foot-1, 197-pound Boyd.

Officials ruled that the ball came loose before Boyd’s knee touched the ground, and the Steelers recovered the fumble to effectively ice the game.

“At first when it happened immediately Cincinnati Bengal and former Pitt wide receiver Tyler Boyd crushed after loss I really didn’t know [if my knee was down],” against Pittsburgh Steelers Sunday night. Matt Hawley STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER Boyd said. “But after I watched it, my knee The Bengals then selected Boyd in the secMichigan State, Notre Dame and Wisconsin. was obviously down and I still had possesInstead, he chose to stay home and play for ond round of the 2016 NFL Draft, locking him sion of the ball, clearly. But the refs made a call Pitt, where he set numerous records and left into a division rivalry against his hometown and stood with it.”

A native of Clairton, Pennsylvania, Boyd his mark as one of the best pass-catchers to team –– starting Week 2 in Pittsburgh. He had a candid response about facing his home team spent the past seven years as one of western ever suit up for the Panthers.

Boyd made an impact as soon as he arrived going into the game.

Pennsylvania’s brightest football stars.

“I’ve got a lot of respect for the Steelers.

By the time his high school career was on campus, earning second-team All-ACC over, Boyd had rushed for 5,755 yards and honors in his first year at Pitt while setting an Even though I have so much respect for them, scored 117 total touchdowns. His Clairton ACC first-year record with 85 receptions and I’m still going to try and punch them in the Bears captured the PIAA Class A state cham- adding 1,174 yards receiving and eight touch- mouth,” Boyd told Steelers.com. “[And] make sure I compete because I don’t want a guy to pionship all four years in high school en route downs.

Over the next two years, he earned first- punch me in the mouth. Whatever I have to to a state-record 66-game winning streak.

Boyd left Clairton as a four-star recruit team All-ACC honors in both his sophomore do to win.”

After getting his professional career off to and the No. 12 wide receiver prospect in the and junior seasons and finishing his threenation, according to Rivals. He had the choice year college career as the Panthers’ all-time a slow start with only two catches for 24 yards of playing for virtually any big-name college leader in receptions with 254 and receiving in Cincinnati’s season-opening 23-22 victory football program he desired, with offers from yards with 3,361.

See Boyd on page 10

pittnews.com

September 19, 2016

offense falters at OSU Ashwini Sivaganesh Assistant Sports Editor

Pitt’s passing offense could not keep up with Oklahoma State Saturday, due in part to redshirt senior Dontez Ford sitting out the game because of a reported broken collarbone.

Playing without the team’s only experienced wide receiver, quarterback Nathan Peterman threw for 237 yards and completed less than 50 percent of his passes. Redshirt junior Jester Weah had an explosive 60-yard touchdown but finished with only two catches.

The Panthers’ weak — or absent — passing offense caused this week’s 45-38 loss, and to get back on track, the team will need a receiver to step up and ensure the line doesn’t cripple any further.

Going into Saturday’s game, reports surfaced that Ford would not be playing because of a fractured collarbone. The injury, which requires surgery, will cause the senior wideout to miss a few games at the very least.

The inconvenience of Ford’s injury comes at one of the toughest times in the Panthers’ schedule, keeping him out not just against Oklahoma State but also presumably next week against the defending ACC Coastal Division champion North Carolina Tar Heels.

Ford proved he was an offensive asset last fall alongside former Panthers star wide receiver Tyler Boyd. He averaged an impressive 19.4 yards per catch over 26 receptions, good for 505 yards.

Pitt wasn’t counting on Ford to See Sidebar on page 9

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volleyball dominates in Panther Challenge, 2-1 David Leftwich Staff Writer

Following a discouraging loss Friday night, the Pitt volleyball team rebounded to secure a pair of wins Saturday in the Panther Challenge tournament at the Fitzgerald Field House.

The Panthers (9-3) hosted Western Kentucky, Lehigh and Robert Morris over the weekend after going 2-1 in the Panther Invitational tournament last week. Western Kentucky outlasted Pitt in a five-set victory Friday night, but the Panthers bounced back to sweep Lehigh and Robert Morris Saturday to conclude the tournament with another 2-1 finish.

The two tournaments marked the end of the Panthers’ most difficult non-conference schedule since Dan Fisher first took over as Pitt’s head coach in 2013. Beating ranked teams like No. 25 Colorado State and No. 22 Michigan each of the past two weekends should boost the team’s confidence for its upcoming ACC games.

Before facing the senior-laden Georgia Tech (9-3) roster for their first conference match of the year next week, the Panthers squared off against Western Kentucky in what proved to be the team’s most difficult game so far.

“The biggest factor in the match was we had no answer for the middle hitter [Rachel Anderson],” Fisher said.

The first set of the match was the most lopsided, as Pitt stormed out to a 25-15 win, but the Hilltoppers rebounded during the next two sets.

The second set featured 10 ties, and Pitt briefly held a 26-25 lead, but three straight kills from Western Kentucky gave the Hilltoppers the win by a score of 28-26.

Keeping the momentum going, Western Kentucky came out and took an early 15-10 lead in the third set. Pitt clawed its way back on the strength of a six-point run to take a 21-20 lead, but again, the Panthers gave up the lead and the set as the Hilltoppers won, 25-23.

Pitt stifled Western Kentucky’s offense in the fourth set and racked up 14 kills in a 25-22 win to force a decisive fifth set.

After falling behind, 10-8, Pitt came back and took an 11-10 lead. But again, the Panthers could not hang onto the lead and lost four of the last five points to close the set. The Hilltoppers won the final set, 15-12, clinching a 3-2 match victory.

“I think our serve receive kind of shut down,

Stephanie Williams (13) sets up the ball against Western Kentucky Friday.

See Volleyball on page 10 John Hamilton STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Sidebar, pg. 8

TNS

pittnews.com pittnews com

replace all of Boyd’s production, repl but the th team’s seasoned receiver was clearly missed on the field, as the team struggled to catch up in the passing struggl game.

The Panthers’ 237 passing yards paled in comparison to Oklahoma State’s high-powered offense, which went for fo 540 yards.

In tthe first play of the game, Oklahoma State quarterback Mason Rudolph threw a 91-yard touchdown and t didn’t let l up after that.

The teams engaged in a back-andforth b battle, with the Cowboys jumping ou out to multiple two-touchdown leads, but the Panthers kept coming back. Then, with the game tied at 38 T early in the fourth quarter, a lightning storm caused an almost two-hour delay.

The teams traded a pair of punts after re returning to the field and looked to be in a stalemate with overtime approaching.

But with less than two approa minutes minute on the clock, Rudolph found

receiver Jhajuan Seales, bringing the Cowboys one yard away from a goahead touchdown.

Oklahoma State running back Rennie Childs then dashed the extra yard for his fourth touchdown of the game, and Peterman threw an interception on Pitt’s ensuing possession to end the comeback attempt.

Pitt head coach Pat Narduzzi anticipated that Oklahoma would be its biggest competitor so far, and after the game’s conclusion, he made it clear that the team would analyze exactly what went wrong.

“When you talk about them having good receivers, well guess what, they have good [defensive backs] too,” Narduzzi said. “They’re big, tall, lengthy guys and they’ve got some pretty good coverage guys too.”

At the near end of Saturday’s game, it seemed Pitt’s offense had finally sparked. Redshirt freshman Tre Tipton, in for Ford, along with fellow receivers Weah and Quadree Henderson, laid out for a diving grab on fourth down — the first catch of his career

September 19, 2016

— to extend the game. Tipton made two more big catches on the drive before Peterman’s interception cut Pitt’s comeback attempt short. Still, Tipton’s performance indicated that the young receiver may be ready to take a larger role in the offense going forward.

The Panthers will need him to next week, when they travel to take on another dynamic offense featuring electrifying wide receiver Ryan Switzer.

Oklahoma State reveled in this weekend’s victory after a controversial loss to Central Michigan on the last play of the game a week prior. Pitt’s loss can only be one of few if the Panthers plan to be a championship contender in 2016.

Saturday’s game against the Tar Heels will tell if Oklahoma State was just a case of unfocused offense — a problem Pitt didn’t seem to have against Penn State — or a season plague.

Pitt football will make its next appearance in Chapel Hill, North Carolina to play the Tar Heels Saturday, Sept.

24, at 3:30 p.m.

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Volleyball, pg. 9

Boyd, pg. 8 over the New York Jets, Boyd made his presence known immediately against the Steelers.

With the Bengals facing third-and-5 on their first possession, quarterback Andy Dalton hit Boyd for a 10-yard gain and a first down. But the Steelers’ defense held and forced a punt.

After another field goal put the Steelers up 10-3, Boyd came up with another third-down conversion late in the first half. Dalton found him over the middle for 16 yards on thirdand-3, and Boyd absorbed a hit from Steelers safety Mike Mitchell to secure the catch.

With just over five minutes left in the third quarter and the Bengals facing first-and-25 from their own 10-yard line, Boyd came up with the biggest catch of his NFL career so far, streaking open over the middle for a 29-yard gain and a big first down.

That play sparked a long drive for Cincinnati, who moved the ball all the way to the Steelers’ 1-yard line before settling for another field goal to cut the Steelers’ lead to 17-9.

The Bengals finally found the end zone on Dalton’s 25-yard touchdown pass to Giovani Bernard with 3:25 left, then forced a threeand-out and got the ball back with a chance to

tie the game down 24-16.

Cincinnati moved the ball across midfield and Dalton found Boyd over the middle for his sixth catch. But Harrison was ready and waiting to lower the boom and dash any hopes of a magical comeback for Boyd and the Bengals.

“My instinct once I caught the ball and spun, I saw a guy like [Harrison] I just wanted to immediately get down,” Boyd said. “Just the simple fact that I knew I wasn’t going to get anywhere … not necessarily that he was going to kill me, I just wanted to continue the drive.”

Boyd said he felt he let his team down, but his veteran teammates weren’t about to blame him.

“I thought [Boyd] played well, I thought he did a lot of good things. You can’t focus on the fumble,” Dalton said. “You’ve got to move on from it and learn from it, and I think he will.”

Boyd’s teammate at wide receiver, A.J. Green, emphasized that the team wouldn’t have been in position to tie the game late without the rookie receiver.

“He played great for us today. He was making all the plays on third down to get us down and score,” Green said. “So, we definitely needed him today. He stepped up big today for us.”

The Pitt news crossword 9/19/16

especially towards the end of the matches,” junior Mariah Bell said about sets slipping away. “It was pretty consistent through the beginning and the middle, but once it was 20-20, that’s when we started freaking out and became very tense.”

Bell and redshirt freshman Stephanie Williams put up big numbers with 20 and 19 kills apiece, but it was not enough to overcome Pitt’s greatest difficulty this season: finishing sets.

“We mixed up our shots enough to confuse the defense,” Williams said about the offensive success she and Bell shared throughout the match.

Play went much more smoothly Saturday for the Panthers, who turned things around quickly in their next match against Lehigh.

Pitt came out on top in a competitive first set, 25-21. Then, after taking a 13-11 lead in the second set, Pitt won an astounding 12 of the next 14 points to take the set, 25-13.

The third set was more of the same. The Panthers took a 16-14 lead and then pulled away, winning nine of the next 11 points to put away the set, 25-16, and the match, 3-0.

In the final match of the tournament, the Panthers throttled cross-town rival Robert Mor-

ris in straight sets.

The teams were tied at nine in the first set after a back-and-forth start, then Pitt exploded to take the set, 25-13, on the back of 14 kills.

The momentum remained on the Panthers’ side to start the second set, propelling them to a 9-1 start. Their stellar blocking and team-play helped them cruise from there to an easy 25-9 victory.

Nothing changed during the third set, as Pitt maintained an efficient offense and a smothering defense to take the set, 25-15, and the match, 3-0.

“I think there was a learning curve from Western Kentucky to these other two matches versus Lehigh and RMU,” Williams said. “We need to always go for it and crush teams if we know we can.”

Williams and the rest of the Panthers know that they have a tough ACC schedule ahead and that these non-conference games prepared them for the veteran teams to come.

“We need to get ready to play Georgia Tech, who is a top 50 RPI team and has a ton of seniors that are some of the best in the league,” Fisher said. “We’re satisfied with the [non-conference schedule] in terms of getting some potential big wins.”

The Panthers host Georgia Tech at the Fitzgerald Field House Friday, Sept. 23, at 7 p.m.

pittnews.com

September 19, 2016

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