Feb. 28, 2002
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. - The Purdue men's swimming and diving team is in eighth place after the first day of competition at the 2002 Men's Big Ten Swimming and Diving Championships with a total of 70 points.
"Today, we went in knowing it was our weakest day of events," said Purdue head men's swimming coach Dan Ross. "But, we're right where we thought we'd be after Day One and we're within striking distance of sixth and maybe even fifth place. We'll have to wait and see until after tomorrow morning's prelims - that'll be a big morning for us and hopefully we're up for the challenge that's before us.
"I am really happy about how our divers performed today. We scored our first diving points in maybe eight or nine years and that's really great for both the program and us, as a team. I think tomorrow those guys should even be able to pull up into the top eight finishers on the 3-meter board."
In the finals events of the evening, the Boilermakers finished eighth with their 200 freestyle relay in 1:21.20. Team members were senior Jon Duncan, junior Jeremy Wright, senior Javier Diaz and senior Donovan Crowley.
Wright also came back to swim the 500 freestyle in the consolation heat after qualifying in ninth place in the morning's prelims with a time of 4:24.95. In the night session, he finished 10th with a time of 4:28.11. Freshman Rion Epping scored the first points of his young career as a Boilermaker in the 500 free, as well. Epping qualified for the consolation heat with a morning time of 4:30.13 and finished in 15th place in the night session with a time of 4:30.26.
In the 200 individual medley, freshman Louis Paul was the only Boilermaker finalist, finishing 15th in the finals consolation heat with a time of 1:50.40. Paul slipped slightly from his qualifying time of 1:49.08, an NCAA B-cut time.
On the 1-meter board, freshman Clayton Davis tallied a score of 232.65 for 14th place and sophomore Eric Warrick scored 232.35 points for 15th place. These two top 16 finishes are the first men's diving points for the Boilermakers at the Big Ten Championships in several years.
In the final event of the evening, the 400 medley relay team of Paul, sophomore Tamas Bessenyei, junior Tad Sayce and Duncan finished third with a B-cut time of 3:15.36. Both Bessenyei and Duncan finished with their best-ever split times.
After the competition of Day One, the Minnesota Golden Gophers sit in first place with the Michigan Wolverines in second. The breakdown of scores is as follows:
1 University of Minnesota 1972 University of Michigan 1693 Penn State University 1574 Northwestern University 1345 Indiana University 1226 The Ohio State University 1087 University of Wisconsin 948 Purdue University 709 The University of Iowa 6810 Michigan State University 23
The Boilermakers will return to action tomorrow at the Councilman-Billingsley Aquatic Center in Bloomington at noon, as the Day Two prelims will get underway. The men can be followed with live updates throughout the day and the whole meet at www.iuhoosiers.com.
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