Northwestern
NCAA Championships
Northwestern Finishes 10th at NCAA Championships
3/25/2006 12:00:00 AM | Men's Swimming and Diving
March 25, 2006
ATLANTA, Ga. -- For the second-consecutive year, Northwestern finished the NCAA Championships as a top-10 team. The Wildcats concluded this year's meet in 10th place, earning six more All-America honors during the Championships' final day.
Overall, Northwestern earned 183.5 points, 13.5 points behind ninth-place Georgia and 47 points ahead of 11th-place Minnesota. Auburn came from behind to win the team title by 40 points over Arizona. The Wildcats were the second-highest placing Big Ten team behind eighth-place Michigan.
Northwestern finished in eighth place a year ago.
On the meet's final day, junior Matt Grevers (Lake Forest, Ill./Lake Forest) brought his career All-America total to 21 with a pair of honors. Junior Mike Alexandrov (Champaign, Ill./Centennial) earned two more to bring his all-time total to 20, while sophomore Kyle Bubolz (Waukesha, Wis./Waukesha North) picked up one to give him 10 for his career. Freshman Eric Nilsson (Weston, Mass./Weston) earned the first All-America nod of his career Saturday night.
Northwestern did not participate in the first two events of the night -- the 1650 free or the 200 back. Although Nilsson had qualified for the 1650 free, NU elected to save him for the 400 free relay later in the evening.
In the Wildcats' first event Saturday, Grevers and Bubolz swam the 100 free. Bubolz swam a 44.17 to place 32nd during the prelims, while Grevers turned in a 42.90 to qualify for the championship heat. Grevers then swam a 42.83 to place sixth.
In the 200 breast, Alexandrov went 1:56.19 during preliminary competition to make the finals before also placing sixth with a 1:56.46.
In the final event of 2006, Grevers, Bubolz, Nilsson and Alexandrov combined to place seventh in the 400 free relay. The quartet swam a 2:55.26 during preliminary heats before lowering that to 2:54.02 in the finals.
Northwestern's 200 medley, 400 medley, 200 free and 400 free relays all qualified for the championship heats in 2006, the first time that has happened in school history.
For complete results from the 2006 NCAA Championships, link to .
Players Mentioned
