6
@thepittnews Vol. 105 Issue 98 Friday, January 23, 2015 Pittnews.com Men’s and women’s intramural water polo team scrimmaging in Trees Pool. Heather Tennant | Staff Photographer MARCO! Twenty-three days after Act 31 took eect in Pennsylvania, Pitt’s School of Social Work has announced a free, comprehensive, online train- ing program to help prevent child abuse. The Pennsylvania Child Welfare Resource Center developed the course in conjunction with the School of Social Work in response to the Pennsylvania Task Force on Child Protec- tion’s recommendation for improvements to child protection throughout the state, accord- ing to a University press release. The course is free, and users can access it 24 hours a day. Pitt starts online child abuse prevention program Dale Shoemaker Assistant News Editor As Bar Marco gains recognition for being the first restaurant in Pittsburgh to pay servers by salary, industry employees and experts wonder if the move actually helps wait stas. This April, Bar Marco, located in the Strip District, will ask patrons not to tip servers and will, instead, pay their serving staa salary. All full-time employees, including cooks and bartenders, will receive a sal- ary of $35,000, health care benefits and company shares. Kevin Cox, co-owner of Bar Marco, said he thinks server salaries could encourage waiting stato stick with one restaurant. “There’s a lot of turnover and a lot of jumping around in the restaurant industry,” Cox said. Cox said he and the other co-owners are seeking wage stability and long-term ben- efits for employees, many of whom have worked at Bar Marco for multiple years. According to the U.S. Department of La- bor, Pennsylvania’s hourly minimum wage is $2.83 for tipped workers. This is higher than the federal minimum wage for tipped workers, which is $2.15. Consumers have always been expected to make up the dier- ence in tips until a few individually owned restaurants across the country started re- fusing tips. The discussion began when an employee mentioned hearing national news of res- taurants making similar moves, Cox said. Restaurants that pay servers a salary will employ fewer people and increase menu prices to make up for costs, according to James Craft, a professor of business admin- istration. Price hikes may not serve as a deterrent to consumers in expensive restaurants, Craft added. “I go [to expensive restaurants] with the expectation of paying a lot of money, anyway,” he said. Instead of tacking on a service fee for menu items, Cox said, Bar Marco will “add more depth to the menu and start serving dishes that require more skill to make.” The most desirable payment methods for staat restaurants can still vary as sig- nificantly as in-house recipes. While some restaurants are adopting a salary or management-paid hourly rate, Craft predicts a majority of the industry will stick with the current tipping standard. Clientele at upscale restaurants won’t mind an increase in prices if the owners start paying the staminimum wage, Craft said, especially if more restaurants choose to follow this trend. Less-expensive restau- rants, where the clientele are accustomed to low prices, however, will probably stick to standard tipping, according to Craft. Another consideration is that servers may not like having a salary. Bar Marco owners seek to provide em- ployees with wage stability, but others in the restaurant industry say tipping is one of the primary appeals of serving. Don’t keep the change Pittsburgh restaurant trades tips for salaries Lauren Wilson Staff Writer Tips 2 Read the rest online at Pittnews.com.

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@thepittnews

Vol. 105Issue 98

Friday, January 23, 2015Pittnews.com

Men’s and women’s intramural water polo team scrimmaging in Trees Pool. Heather Tennant | Staff Photographer

MARCO!

Twenty-three days after Act 31 took e! ect in Pennsylvania, Pitt’s School of Social Work has announced a free, comprehensive, online train-ing program to help prevent child abuse.

The Pennsylvania Child Welfare Resource

Center developed the course in conjunction with the School of Social Work in response to the Pennsylvania Task Force on Child Protec-tion’s recommendation for improvements to child protection throughout the state, accord-ing to a University press release. The course is free, and users can access it 24 hours a day.

Pitt starts online child abuse prevention program

Dale Shoemaker Assistant News Editor

As Bar Marco gains recognition for being the fi rst restaurant in Pittsburgh to pay servers by salary, industry employees and experts wonder if the move actually helps wait sta! s.

This April, Bar Marco, located in the Strip District, will ask patrons not to tip servers and will, instead, pay their serving sta! a salary. All full-time employees, including cooks and bartenders, will receive a sal-ary of $35,000, health care benefi ts and company shares.

Kevin Cox, co-owner of Bar Marco, said he thinks server salaries could encourage waiting sta! to stick with one restaurant.

“There’s a lot of turnover and a lot of jumping around in the restaurant industry,” Cox said.

Cox said he and the other co-owners are seeking wage stability and long-term ben-efi ts for employees, many of whom have worked at Bar Marco for multiple years.

According to the U.S. Department of La-bor, Pennsylvania’s hourly minimum wage is $2.83 for tipped workers. This is higher than the federal minimum wage for tipped workers, which is $2.15. Consumers have always been expected to make up the di! er-ence in tips until a few individually owned restaurants across the country started re-fusing tips.

The discussion began when an employee mentioned hearing national news of res-taurants making similar moves, Cox said.

Restaurants that pay servers a salary will

employ fewer people and increase menu prices to make up for costs, according to James Craft, a professor of business admin-istration.

Price hikes may not serve as a deterrent to consumers in expensive restaurants, Craft added.

“I go [to expensive restaurants] with the expectation of paying a lot of money, anyway,” he said.

Instead of tacking on a service fee for menu items, Cox said, Bar Marco will “add more depth to the menu and start serving dishes that require more skill to make.”

The most desirable payment methods for sta! at restaurants can still vary as sig-nifi cantly as in-house recipes.

While some restaurants are adopting a salary or management-paid hourly rate, Craft predicts a majority of the industry will stick with the current tipping standard.

Clientele at upscale restaurants won’t mind an increase in prices if the owners start paying the sta! minimum wage, Craft said, especially if more restaurants choose to follow this trend. Less-expensive restau-rants, where the clientele are accustomed to low prices, however, will probably stick to standard tipping, according to Craft.

Another consideration is that servers may not like having a salary.

Bar Marco owners seek to provide em-ployees with wage stability, but others in the restaurant industry say tipping is one of the primary appeals of serving.

Don’t keep the changePittsburgh restaurant trades tips for salaries

Lauren Wilson Staff Writer

Tips 2Read the rest online at Pittnews.com.

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2 January 23, 2015 | The Pitt News | www.pittnews.com

Without tips, servers would treat their jobs di! erently, according to Katie Vilord, who waits tables at Mad Mex in Oakland.

“There’s just no incentive for people to work as hard [with a salary],” Vilord said.

While servers in restaurants with wealth-ier clientele enjoy collecting tips, the aver-age restaurant worker is typically not this fortunate.

In March 2014, the White House released a report, “The Impact of Raising the Mini-mum Wage on Women and the Importance of Ensuring a Robust Tipped Minimum Wage,” to push lawmakers toward minimum wage reform. According to the report, serv-ers are three times more likely than the rest of the American workforce to live in poverty.

Mike Hartman, a server at Wa" es IN-Ca! einated in South Side, enjoys working at restaurants because of the fl exibility and said a change in payment would probably mean longer hours.

“It would be just like any other job,” Hart-man said.

Hartman said he would simply fi nd an-other job if his employers decide to pay a fi xed salary. After working as a restaurant server for over 20 years, from large franchis-es to family-owned joints and higher-end restaurants, he still prefers to count his tips.

“You’re going to have no motivation to make sure you’re taking care of your table because you’re getting paid an hourly rate,” Hartman said.

Xaz Walker, who works with Hartman at Wa" es INCa! einated, feels di! erently. After working as a server for three years, Walker has grown accustomed to receiving roughly $130 a day in tips. Yet she still disagrees with the payment method and said a salary would not reduce her incentive to provide good customer service.

“I don’t like that customers are in charge of how much money I take home,” Walker said. “I’m one of those people who just takes pride in my job.”

Many waiters, like Walker and Hartman, have worked at several di! erent restaurants.

In November 2014, the Bureau of La-bor Statistics published the “Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey News Release,” which found that food service held an in-

dustry turnover rate of 5.6 percent, the second-highest rate among all industries. The entire private sector turnover rate dur-ing this period was 3.7 percent.

Christian Kamensky from Munhall has worked as a bartender, server and server’s assistant in the foodservice industry. He began his career at Buckhead Saloon in Station Square. Since then, Kamensky has held a variety of serving positions at eight di! erent restaurants, including McFadden’s and Town Tavern.

“I just go where the money is, you know?” Kamensky said. “That’s where you end up staying.”

In eight years of waiting, Kamensky has served customers who gave him generous tips, while others didn’t leave any tip at all.

“Not everybody, but a select population come into the establishment, think they’re owed the world and should be waited on hand and foot. People treat waiters like ani-mals. There’s no respect,” Kamensky said.

Kamensky added that if management decided to give him an average hourly wage, rather than tips, he would not do his job well. For him, serving is not a profession, but a short-term occupation.

If his boss o! ered a $35,000 salary, he said he’d stay with the company “because of job security.”

According to Craft, more expensive res-taurants tend to have lower turnover rate.

For Bar Marco, some employees have been working at the restaurant since it opened in 2011.

Justen Burrell has been waiting tables at Bar Marco for two and a half years. He called the $35,000 salary “standard for a place like [Bar Marco].” In May 2013, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that waiters and waitresses on average make an annual wage of $20,880.

Burrell, who also works at the restau-rant’s wine bar, looks forward to the res-taurant’s changes.

“People don’t realize what a big deal it is for waiters to have health care,” Burrell said.

For him, benefi ts like health care provide incentives to remain loyal to the company.

Cox said he’s all for a health care plan for the employees at Bar Marco.

“Hell, you know if we’re going to go this far [by paying a salary], we might as well go all the way and treat [serving] like a true profession,” Cox said.

TIPSFROM PAGE 1

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OPINIONS

Fatima Kizilkaya | Staff Cartoonist

Casual FridaysEDITORIALEDITORIAL

Dirty money

On Tuesday, a California man discovered what it meant to get trashed. While sifting through a garbage bin in hopes of fi nding his lost wallet, the man was scooped up by a waste truck and taken on an hour-long ride to a landfi ll. He survived, though a bit trucked up, and is currently being treated at UC Davis Medical Center for severe back and neck pain.

Death by chocolate

A New Hampshire animal expert is calling for the elimina-tion of baiting practices that he can no longer bear. Last Sep-tember, four bears died after eating 90 pounds of chocolate and doughnuts that a hunter left to lure the giants. Theobro-mine, the toxic ingredient in chocolate, brought the bears to their bittersweet end. It was revealed at the scene that the cocoa culprit was Bear-ardelli

— and it wasn’t a beary sweet surprise.

Paste in haste

On Wednesday, sta! at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo made a royal mistake. King Tutankhamun’s 3,300-year-old death mask was ruined when a member of the cleaning sta! knocked a chunk of his blue and gold beard o! . Since other methods of repairing the mask would be a pain in the Tut, they opted to use glue. Tut, Tut, ex-perts at the museum were furi-ous. When asked for comment, the sta! member in question said they have been experienc-ing great de-Nile.

Highway to cholestor-hell

Frying down the highway, Georgia man Madison Turner learned a lard lesson. Turner ordered a Double Quarter Pounder from a local McDon-

ald’s and proceeded to eat it while driving. After two miles, he was apprehended by police. Turner was cited for “eating while driving” under Georgia’s distracted driving law. Police asked whether Turner had any fries with that, and he did. The two shared a greasy treat, and there is currently no beef be-tween them.

Gator grubs on gatos

Last week, investi-gators found an eight-foot reptile be-ing kept in a local home. The alligator was found in a box with two cat carcasses. It is suspected that the 40-year-old gator has been scaling Califor-nia homes for these purr-fect treats for quite some time now. The owners would not tail au-thorities if this was true or not. It is pawsible that Los Angeles Animal Services Commander Mark Salazar-Slytherin used Parseltongue to locate the reptile.

COLUMNCOLUMN

Last week, unknown vandals burned a U.S. fl ag donated to a local Oregon elementary school by 1st Sgt. Regi-nald Daniels. The burnt fl ag was left at half-sta! .

Despite its animosity, burning the American fl ag is actually an intensely educated and productive idea. The nameless vandals weren’t vandals at all — they were likely only burning the fl ag with utmost respect for it.

Here’s why: 1. Flag burning dampens social

injustice and corruption.Traditionally, fl ag burning has

been an e! ective way to solve is-sues like police brutality and gun violence. In August 2014, the people of Ferguson, Mo., made sure that no fl ags were left uncharred as they symbolically voiced their opinions against police brutality. Clearly, burning the fl ag will immediately stop corruption in positions of au-thority. It is likely that police will stop using guns entirely as a result of fl ag burning. We should expand this highly e" cient practice to stop all forms of violence.

2. As a harmless and safe act, fl ag burning will promote world peace.

In order for the rest of the world to see America as the accepting, compassionate society it is, we should rid ourselves of any relevant di! erences. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the population was close to 319 million as of last July. By this standard, our fl ag doesn’t acknowledge about 7 billion other people in the world. By intentionally letting fl ames engulf our fl ag, we can

promote the blending of cultures. We can replace our fl ag with a uni-versal one to represent the whole world. Overcoming communica-tion barriers would be easy. After all, there are only about 6,500 other languages in the world. Hopefully, by banding together as The United World of America, we could self-lessly facilitate world peace.

3. Refusing to voice dissenting political opinions is an ingenious use of free speech.

Flag burning is a right under the Bill of Right’s First Amendment, falling under the term “symbolic speech.” Since 14 percent of Ameri-cans don’t know how to read — and therefore would be uninterested in literary endeavors — leave Face-book statuses and letters to the editor in the past. You can reach a much broader audience by burning the fl ag. Making the illiterate liter-ate would take too long and prove too costly. A small fl ag and lighter come to a grand total under $10. Not only is fl ag burning protected as an absolutely necessary and accept-able First Amendment right — it is a! ordable for any angry American.

4. Flag burning shows in-credible respect for the men and women who have fought for your right to burn said fl ag.

Proper fl ag disposal involves folding the fl ag, placing it on a pre-lit fi re, saluting the charred bits and reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. By following this practice, political dis-satisfaction will be understood cor-rectly and clearly, with the greatest esteem. This is the best way to salute the men and women who protect our freedom of speech.

Flag burning: ! e best method for changeRebecca Peters

For The Pitt News

Peters 4

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ACROSS1 Ones calling the

shots?5 Rock blasters9 Californie, for one

13 Apple variety14 Goal for a runner15 Renaissance

painter Veronese16 Deep-sea

creature, literally18 Mozart’s “King of

Instruments”19 Seat of Dallas

County, Alabama20 Alternative

strategies, literally22 Churchill, for one24 “Who, me?”25 1,000 G’s27 Goes out for a

bit?30 Fusion, for one35 Receptionist on

“The Office”37 It’s frowned upon39 Yellowish tone40 Infomercial offers,

literally43 Time to say

“¡Feliz añonuevo!”

44 Pioneers’ journey,say

45 Unpopular spots46 Buck48 1980s surgeon

general50 Dennings of

“Thor”51 __ lane53 “Who, me?”55 Toddler’s

transport, literally61 Alley wanderers64 Certain Middle

Easterner65 Preflight

purchase, literally67 Pirouette,

essentially68 Settled down69 “Truth in

Engineering”automaker

70 First place?71 Bothersome

parasites72 Block (up)

DOWN1 Steals, with “off”2 Former “Fashion

Emergency” host

3 Surface fractures4 Blockhead5 Fire proof6 Courses taken

consecutively?7 Depressing

atmosphere8 Energy9 “Downton Abbey”

title10 Draped garment11 The first “A” in

A.A. Milne12 Piles15 Michael Jackson,

e.g.17 Tip off21 One on the other

side23 Half a

philosophicalduality

25 “The Seven-Per-Cent Solution”author Nicholas

26 Adler of SherlockHolmes lore

28 Look down29 Snideness31 Numerical prefix32 “Look at this!”33 Battleground34 Start over, in a

way36 Sushi seaweed

38 Layered snack41 Venue involving a

lot of bodycontact

42 “Right Now (NaNa Na)” artist

47 Rogers Centreteam, onscoreboards

49 Majestic display52 Like some

popular videos54 Big brass

55 “Heavens toBetsy!”

56 Crosswordcomponent

57 Collapsed58 Aware of59 Where many

subs areassembled

60 Really, really cool62 Stir63 Pass over66 Downed

Thursday’s Puzzle SolvedBy Paolo Pasco 1/30/15

©2015 Tribune Content Agency, LLC 1/30/15

The

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New

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E S T A B L I S H E D 1 9 1 0

Editorial PoliciesSingle copies of The Pitt News are free and available at newsstands around

campus. Additional copies can be purchased with permission of the editor in chief for $.50 each.

Opinions expressed herein are not necessarily those of the students, faculty or University administration. Opinions expressed in columns, car-toons and letters are not necessarily those of The Pitt News. Any letter in-tended for publication must be addressed to the editor, be no more than 250 words and include the writer’s name, phone number and University a!liation, if any. Letters may be sent via e-mail to [email protected]. The Pitt News reserves the right to edit any and all letters. In the event of multiple replies to an issue, The Pitt News may print one letter that represents the majority of responses. Unsigned editorials are a majority opinion of the Editorial Board, listed to the left.

The Pitt News is an independent, student-written and 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.

Complaints concerning coverage by The Pitt News, after first being brought to the editors, may be referred to the Community Relations Com-mittee, Pitt News Advisory Board, c/o student media adviser, 435 William Pitt Union, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pa. 15260.

The editor in chief has the final authority on editorial matters and cannot be censored, according to state and federal law. The editor in chief is selected by the Pitt News Advisory Board, which includes University sta", fac-ulty and students, as well as journalism professionals. The business and edito-rial o!ces of The Pitt News are located at 434 William Pitt Union, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pa. 15260.

Copy Sta!Sarah Choflet

Anjuli Das Kinley Gillette Johanna HelbaEmily Maccia

Bridget MontgomerySarah Mejia

Michelle ReagleMegan Zagorski

Abbey Reighard, Assistant News EditorDale Shoemaker, Assistant News Editor

Courtney Linder, Assistant Opinions EditorDan Sostek, Assistant Sports EditorJe! Ahearn, Assistant Visual Editor

Mason Lazarche!, Multimedia EditorDavid Gardner, Social Media EditorSam McGinley, Assistant Copy Chief

Emily Hower, Assistant Layout Editor

Danielle Fox, Managing [email protected]

David BaroneAllison Soenksen

Robert CaponeAlex Kanner

Antonio BlundoA.J. Campli

Franny TishKaitlin Kramer

THE PITT NEWSNatalie Daher Editor-in-Chief

[email protected]

Kevin Vanover, Business [email protected]

David Barr, Sales [email protected]

Kelsey McConville, Inside Sales [email protected]

Molly EmerickVictoria HetrickDanielle Murphy

Stephen EllisMarketing Manager

Kristine Aprile

Marketing AssistantAlly Stevens

Digital Manager

Inside Sales

Account Executives

[email protected]

Harrison Kaminsky, News [email protected]

Matt Barnes, Opinions [email protected]

Shawn Cooke, A&E [email protected]

Chris Puzia, Sports [email protected]

Theo Schwarz, Visual [email protected]

Ellie Petrosky, Copy [email protected]

Stephen Caruso, Layout [email protected]

Ad Designer Mark Janavel Genna Gincel

Senior University AccountExecutive

Matt Reilly

5. Talk is cheap, but fi re will catch politi-cians’ attention.

Providing alternative, plausible solutions to the problems you have with America’s po-litical system is pointless. Why propose a theo-retical fi x when you can tangibly complain through fi re? All educated people know that burning the fl ag is 100 percent more pro-ductive than talking to a representative that supports your policy preferences. Normally, it takes two to three weeks for a congressman

to respond. Flag burning takes only a few minutes, no matter how big the fl ag.

6. Flag burning is more e! ective than voting.

According to Newsmax.com, President Obama’s approval rating is currently 44.6 percent, which indicates that less than half of all Americans approve of the job he’s doing. To increase these dismal ratings, Obama may want to take the recent fl ag burning protests more seriously. Burning the fl ag informs the president, as well as state and local represen-tatives, that you didn’t vote, because voting is a waste of time. It won’t actually change their policy preferences, and you’ll only be

tossing away energy that could be appropri-ated to fl ag burning. Ninety-three million people took the hint in the 2012 election and did not vote. Hopefully, in the 2016 election, more eligible voters will forego their right to vote and burn fl ags instead. Then, Congress will fi nally create the much-needed Flag-Burning-Problem-Solving Cabinet, in which o! cials would actively seek out fl ag burners and ask them for comment on the state of our government

7. Burning fl ags is cooler than wearing them.

The fl ag burning in Oregon is not an anomaly. It is the beginning of a trend —

even a social movement. Soon, the fl ag will no longer be oversexualized by Tumblr vixens wearing the sacred cloth as a kimono. Instead, you will fi nd images of burned fl ags on the site, a new way to express how trendy and liberal you are. Women can trade patriotic outfi ts for wholesome fl ag burning demonstrations.

Your thirst for change will only be strengthened through the smoke, fl ames and ash produced by a burning fl ag. If enough people participate simultaneously, perhaps the mass of smoke will spell out what the people really want, a smoke signal to the ex-ecutive branch that will undoubtedly result in an infi nitely happier population.

PETERSFROM PAGE 3

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SPORTS

This weekend, two of Pitt’s varsity sports teams will head away from the city to compete in weekend meets. Here is a preview of their weekend action.

GYMNASTICSThe gymnastics team will travel to

the home of its East Atlantic Gymnastics League (EAGL) foe New Hampshire in Durham to try to pick up a key victory (2-3, 0-2 EAGL).

The women are looking to build on their performance in last Sunday’s event in D.C. hosted by George Washington University, where they placed third out of five teams with a score of 192.625, less than two and three points behind North Carolina and host team George Washington, respectively.

Junior co-captain Lindsay Offutt, an all-around event participant for the Panthers, says the team is looking to im-prove this past weekend’s overall score.

“We didn’t get off to the greatest start in our last meet,” said Offutt, who is coming off a career-high in the uneven bars with a 9.750. “We’re looking to im-prove our overall score from George Washington by around two points. That score is ideal for where we want to be at this point in our season.”

Other junior co-captain Tiara Chadran, a participant in vault, floor exercise and uneven bars, said the key to the team’s success is to feed off each other’s energy to succeed this weekend.

“We really want to work together as a team,” Chadran said. “We’ve had group assignments all week, so we learn

Gymnastics, track ready for weekend

meetsBrandon Duerr

Staff Writer

Weekend 6

Having played three out of its last four games against ranked teams, the Pitt wom-en’s basketball team might have been used to facing top-tier competition on Thursday night.

But that experience did not help the Pan-thers against No. 22 Syracuse.

After beating Georgia Tech in overtime in their last game, the Panthers (12-6, 2-3 ACC) played another close game, this time with a di! erent result as they lost to the Orange by a score of 68-60 at the Petersen Events Center.

Ten seconds into the game, junior guard Brianna Butler of Syracuse set the tone for her team when she hit a 3-pointer to give the Orange (14-5, 4-2 ACC) a quick lead.

Both teams played sloppy basketball early, combining for 10 turnovers in the fi rst seven minutes of the game. Still, Syra-

cuse led 15-8 with 12:54 left in the fi rst half.“This was a heartbreaker,” head coach

Suzie McConnell-Serio said. “We didn’t de-fend the way we needed to defend.”

With the shot clock running down with 12:00 in the half, senior guard Brianna Kie-sel banked in a 3-pointer from straightaway to cut the defi cit to 15-11. Kiesel had seven of the team’s fi rst 11 points and fi nished with 14 points, tacking on a team-high eight assists.

Pitt was e! ective on the boards early, grabbing seven o! ensive rebounds com-pared to Syracuse’s one. But the Panthers could not convert many of those boards into second-chance points.

Their rebounding success wavered in the second half, when Syracuse consistently grabbed o! ensive rebounds o! of its own missed free throws. A stretch of Syracuse o! ensive boards late iced the game for the visitors, who tied the Panthers with 40 total rebounds apiece.

“We didn’t box out as well as we could

have,” freshman forward Stasha Carey said. “That’s something we’re defi nitely going to work on in practice.”

Pitt made only one of its 10 3-point shot attempts in the fi rst half. The team fi nished with a 26 percent 3-point shooting rate.

Both teams combined for 19 turnovers in a sloppy, often fast-paced half, but the Orange never relinquished their early lead in the half.

Syracuse center Briana Day picked up her third foul early in the second half during an 8-0 Pitt run, but Orange head coach Quentin Hillsman kept the sophomore in the game.

After jumping out to a hot 75 percent shooting clip, the Orange settled down to fi nish at 41 percent shooting.

The Panthers tied the game for the fi rst time at 34-34 with 15:40 remaining in the contest.

Following that, Syracuse employed a full-court press in an e! ort to force Kiesel to turn the ball over, but the Panthers broke it easily, crossing the court after only a few seconds of facing the press.

Still, Monica Wignot, a graduate student forward, said that the press “didn’t allow us to run our o! ense as smoothly.”

“When we execute o! enses and run plays, that’s when we’re successful,” Wignot said. “We see Syracuse again down the line, so we’ll learn from this, and hopefully next time we’ll be well-prepared.”

After the teams exchanged baskets for a few minutes, two quick 3-pointers from Wignot brought the crowd to its feet, giving the Panthers a two-point lead with 12:00 left to play.

Wignot had her best series of the night when she blocked Diamond Henderson on one end, ran to the corner of the 3-point line in transition and hit her second consecutive deep ball to tie the score at 52. She fi nished the game with a team-high 16 points and four blocks.

“I defi nitely had some help getting open,” Wignot said. “The guards did a good job of

Panthers fall at home to rival Orange 68-60

Chris Puzia Sports Editor

RUNDOWNRUNDOWNWOMEN’S BASKETBALLWOMEN’S BASKETBALL

Monica Wignot led the Panthers with 16 points on Thursday. Nate Smith | Staff Photographer

W Hoops 6

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to build off each other’s energy and translate that to success in the meets one after the other during the meet.”

Offutt understands how crucial a win against New Hampshire would be, as the Panthers try to build some momentum heading into the middle part of their season.

“It would be a huge confidence

booster for us,” Offutt said. “The mo-mentum moving forward for us would be huge.”

TRACK AND FIELDThe men’s and women’s track and

field teams also have meets this week-end. They travel to Ohio to participate in the Youngstown State University In-vitational today . Field events begin at 2:30 p.m., followed by track at 3:30 p.m.

The Panthers will be one of 20 teams competing in the invitational, including Duquesne, Dayton and West Virginia.

At last week’s Nittany Lion Chal-lenge, the Panthers posted an impres-sive four first-place finishes and many personal records as well.

One of the first-place finishers was long-distance runner Hillary Boxhei-mer in the 3,000 meter with a time of 10:13:39. Boxheimer normally runs the 3,000 and 5,000 meter distance, but this weekend will be the first time she runs the mile since high school.

“My splits will have to be a lot faster, and I will have to be better and faster overall,” Boxheimer, a junior, said.

For she and rest of the team to suc-ceed this weekend, they will have to focus on their individual mindsets heading into each event.

“It ’s mostly mental,” Boxheimer said. “You have to have that mental toughness to go out and do your best and push through for yourself and your teammates.”

Pitt assistant coach Adam Bray says that he has noticed the team improving since the end of last season.

“They have all been working very hard, and that progress and effort re-ally shows,” he said. “Now that we are competing we get to see that improve-ment in person, and that is a fun thing to watch.”

With 20 teams competing in the YSU Invitational, it can be easy to worry about what the other teams and com-petitors are doing. However, Bray and the rest of the staff say the key to both their early season success and success in the future depends solely on them-selves.

“We have to focus on ourselves, and do that one heat at a time,” Bray said. If we believe in our ability and do what we are capable of, the times will come, and we will be successful.”

WEEKENDFROM PAGE 5

penetrating and kicking and looking for me on the perimeter.”

But, despite grabbing a few o! ensive rebounds late, the Panthers just could not fi nish the plays and get baskets when it counted.

“Give them credit. They were able to make plays down the stretch and hit shots,” McConnell-Serio said. “We just needed to

hit shots. Once they got a four-point lead, we just couldn’t close the gap. This is a very disappointing loss.”

Carey said this experience could help the team later in the season.

“It helps us in the long run. It’s going to help us when we get to tournaments,” she said.

Wignot added that “we’re only going to get better if we play the best.”

Pitt next plays on Saturday against Bos-ton College at the Petersen Events Center. Tip-o! is scheduled for 4 p.m.

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