Northwestern
Big Ten Championships
Men's Swimming Finishes Fourth In Big Ten Conference
3/2/2002 12:00:00 AM | Men's Swimming and Diving
March 2, 2002
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -
Northwestern Day Three Results
Winning two individual events was enough to propel the Northwestern men's swimming and diving team to a fourth-place finish at the Big Ten Conference Championships with 347 points.
Head coach Bob Groseth was named the Big Ten Co-Coach of the Year, and sophomore Tony Swanson (Coon Rapids, Minn./Coon Rapids) was named the Swimmer of the Championships after he won his second individual event Saturday.
Swanson, who had won the 200 IM on Thursday, took first place in the 200 backstroke with an NCAA "A" Standard time of 1:42.94. His time was a career best by more than two seconds.
NU's second individual championship of the day went to Kellan O'Connor (Phoenix, Ariz./Brophy Prep) in the 200 butterfly. O'Connor clocked in at 1:44.35, breaking his own school record and the Indiana pool record of 1:45.06 set by Tom Malchow of Michigan in 1997. The junior All-American finished more than a full second ahead of the competition.
The victories by Swanson and O'Connor pulled the Wildcats out of seventh place, where they had been following Friday's finals, and into fourth place. A fifth-place finish by the 400 freestyle relay team (2:58.67) secured the best school finish in 57 years.
The 200 fly is clearly Northwestern's event. In addition to O'Connor's performance, sophomore Mark Hamming (Lake Forest, Ill./Lake Forest) took fourth place with a career-best 1:46.06, an NCAA "B" Standard time.
In other finals, sophomore Aaron McCracken (Naperville, Ill./Central) took seventh in the 200 breaststroke with a "B" Standard time of 2:00.06, a team-best time. David Hersh (West Milford, N.J./West Milford) had the highest NU finish in the 1,650 free, placing 11th at 15:34.46, a career and team best.
In consolation finals, freshman Louis Torres (Morton Grove, Ill./Niles West) had another breakout day, taking 13th in the 200 breast with a career-best time of 2:02.50. Nick Eggen (Phoenix, Ariz./Arcadia) is the first NU freshman this season to earn an NCAA "B" Standard time, which he did with a ninth-place finish in the 200 back with a time of 1:47.11.
Groseth's Co-Coach of the Year honor is the first for a coach at Northwestern. O'Connor and Swanson also bring home the school's first-ever titles in the 200 fly and 200 IM.
