When former Philadelphia Union Academy defender Nyk Sessock was going through the college recruiting process, Pitt stood out to him as a program not for their futile past but for the future he saw for himself there.
On Thursday night, he and Braden Kline, who he first played with as part of the Union Juniors program, were both part of seeing that vision fulfilled when the Panthers defeated Lehigh 2-0 in the first round of the NCAA Tournament in front of their home crowd. The win was a first for a program founded in 1954.
“The reason I came to Pitt was to make history,” Sessock said in a phone interview.