Mary Blocher of the Munster Swim Club in Indiana has verbally committed to Pitt, giving Chuck Knoles’ Panthers a new sprinting threat.
Blocher has yards bests of 23.67 and 51.75 in the 50 and 100 yard freestyles, both of which were done at the Indiana High School girls’ state championship meet. In that 50 free, she tied for 5th place representing Munster High School.
Pitt’s best 50 freestyler last season was freshman Alex Iwanicki (23.36), and in fact the top 6 Panthers in that race were all freshmen or sophomores. That means, while Blocher has an opportunity to step right on to the Pitt free relays in her first season, the team as a whole is headed in the right direction with their sprint group. For the last three seasons, their 200 free relay has hovered right around a 1:33.6-1:33.8. That’s not enough to compete in their new conference, the ACC, but by the 2015 conference championship meet, that relay has an opportunity to get back into the 1:32’s where they used to be consistently in that relay.
Blocher is a two-year team captain, and at 5’11” has ideal sprint size. She is coached by the combination of Matt Pavlovich and Matt Lee.
Congrats MBB!
Congrats to Chuck and the Pitt program. Busack making an IMPACT right away. Easily one of the most underrated hires in the past year….her thread here only managed one reply. Laughable. 5’11 Dutch women heading to Pittsburgh just in time for the ACC.