The University of Wisconsin men’s swimming team finished 13th at the NCAA Championships with 105 points, recording the highest point total in UW history at a national meet.
“Overall, I’m very happy,” said UW coach Eric Hansen. “Our main objective was to score 100 points, which is a tremendous improvement from where we’ve been in the past. To score 105 (points) is definitely a success and a sign of what’s to come in the future, especially since we have all but one of our NCAA scorers coming back next year.”
The Badgers improved upon their 18th-place finish of a year ago and more than doubled their point total of 41.5 points. The previous best national point total was 43 in 2001.
Wisconsin also picked up a record 24 All-American and honorable-mention All-American honors. The Badgers had four All-Americans and 20 honorable-mention honors.
“The accolades that our men achieved was right on line with what we thought we could do,” said Hansen. “We have the talent, and it’s a group of hardworking guys. It’s really fun to be a part of such a great team atmosphere.”
The Badgers competed in only one final on the last day of competition. The team of Matt Marshall, Eric Wiesner, Adam Mania and Dale Rogers finished ninth in the 400 free relay in 2:56.03.
Hansen credited Marshall for his leadership role on the team. “Matt Marshall really led us. His versatility really came through for us. We can take a step back and be really pleased with what we did this year.”
In the preliminaries, Mania just missed qualifying for the finals of the 200-yard backstroke as he finished 17th in 1:45.65. In the 100-yard freestyle, Rogers finished 29th in 44.15 while Wiesner was 51st in 45.09. Pat Torpey also competed in the morning session, finishing 29th in the 200-yard butterfly in 1:47.59.
Matt Marshall had a busy second day at the NCAA Championships. The junior from Chico, Calif., scored in two individual events and was a member of a relay to lead the Badgers into 11th place in the team standings.
“I knew it was going to be pretty busy,” said Marshall. “It was the same thing at Big Tens. I knew I wouldn’t have a lot of time between events, but that’s what you train for. You train for being able to finish races like that and know that you have to get through each race and try to score as many points for the team as you can.”
Marshall started the day swimming the butterfly leg of the 200-yard medley relay. He teamed with Adam Mania, Kevin Zakrzewski and Dale Rogers to finish 11th in 1:28.45.
Marshall followed that up by swimming the second-fastest time in Big Ten history in the 100-yard butterfly to win the consolation final. He touched in 46.82 to shatter the UW record of 47.36 set by Brendan Coyne in 2001.It was the second time in one day that he broke the school record after swimming 47.20 in the preliminaries. Minnesota’s Martin Zielinski holds the Big Ten record of 46.74.
“I’ve been trying to [break the UW record] all season,” said Marshall. “It’s been one of my goals all season. My goals for today were to one, try to get into the finals to score more points and two, to break Brendan’s record. After I broke it this morning, I went into tonight’s 100 fly just trying to finish as high as I could to score more points because we’re in a pretty tight race for 10th right now. To win consoles and to go under 47 (seconds) was more than I could imagine.”
The school record was the second for Marshall in as many days. On Thursday, he set the UW mark in the 50-yard freestyle at 19.77, breaking a 22-year-old mark.
Less than 20 minutes after the 100 fly, Marshall was competing in the consolation final of the 100-yard backstroke, where he finished 11th overall in 47.81. Mania finished 13th in the same race in 47.88.
The Badgers’ day wrapped up with another school record, this time in the 800-yard freestyle relay. The quartet of Eric Wiesner, Rogers, Pat Torpey and Matt Zuiderhof finished ninth in 6:28.37. They broke their own record of 6:28.75, set at the Texas Invitational earlier this season.
Rogers, Wiesner and Zuiderhof also all competed in the 200-yard freestyle with Rogers finishing 21st (1:37.08), Wiesner 24th (1:37.44) and Zuiderhof 36th (1:38.44).
— compiled from staff reports