COLUMBUS— Michigan swimming and diving assistant coach Josh White jumped in the air and threw his hands to his forehead in disbelief.

After watching the final preliminary heat of the 400-yard freestyle relay at the NCAA Men's Swimming and Diving Championships, the Wolverines’ relay team sat in ninth place. Yes, that meant Michigan would be the top seed in the consolation finals, but for the third time in the four relay events with preliminary races, Michigan finished just one spot away from the championship finals.

It was just that kind of meet for Michigan. Overall, the Wolverines missed qualifying for either the consolation finals or the championship finals by one or two places in eight of the 18 swimming events.

But despite some missed opportunities, the Wolverines finished seventh in the final team standings for the second year in a row, with 204 points. It was Michigan’s 10th consecutive finish in the top 10. Texas won the meet for the 10th time with 500 points and California finished second.

“I’m proud of these guys,” Michigan coach Mike Bottom said. “Because the lesson learned is not that they are going to get knocked down, but the lesson they learned is that they can get back up and they can fight again.”

And they did.

Junior Tyler Clary defended his national title in the 400-yard individual medley with a dominating performance and a time of 3:38.89. He was also national runner-up in the 200-yard backstroke and touched fifth in the 200-yard individual medley.

Senior co-captain André Schultz finished second in his heat of the 200-yard backstroke, good for 10th overall, finished sixth in the 200-yard individual medley and placed seventh in the 400-yard individual medley.

Sophomore Dan Madwed had the county’s fifth best time in the 200-yard butterfly, the sixth best time in the 500-yard freestyle and finished 10th in the 200-yard freestyle.

From the start of the meet, which was delayed 24 hours due to illnesses striking three of the teams, the Wolverines faced several strange occurrences that could have derailed them. In fact, another lesson learned may have been to expect the unexpected.

On the first individual event of the three-day meet — the 500-yard freestyle — freshman Hassaan Abdel-Khalik broke his hand when he smashed it into the wall on the finish. He posted the second fastest overall time in the prelims, but swam in the finals with a soft cast that limited his movement and kept him from diving in at the start. After that race, Abdel-Khalik did not compete again.

And then there was senior co-captain Chris Brady, who had to scratch from the 400-yard freestyle relay after experiencing an irregular heartbeat that eventually hospitalized him shortly following his preliminary race. Though he has no history of a heart condition, he first felt the same symptoms at the Big Ten Championships a month ago, which also led to a hospital visit.

Brady was restricted to watching from the pool deck as his own heat in the 100-yard freestyle earned spots in the championship finals.

“He has been a strong individual and our captain throughout it all,” Bottom said. “When he was injured the team felt it you could see that in their confidence and their face, so we had to find a way to pick it up.”

After Brady scratched from the 400-yard freestyle relay, Clary, Madwed and junior Neal Kennedy were joined by freshman Roman Willets who made his NCAA debut in the consolation finals of the last event of the meet. The decision to go with Willets was meant to give the underclassman experience in a championship meet.

“We’ve done a good job in spite of all the things that happened to us, because there were some amazing things that happened,” Bottom said. “I think it was a great meet for learning and we got a lot of lessons and we still achieved the place I thought we did well with.”

Bergère Resigns: After eight years as Michigan men’s and women’s diving coach, Chris Bergère resigned last Friday. He did not give a reason for leaving his position. Diving has become a weakness in the last few years for the Wolverines. Michigan was unable to score any points in diving at the Big Ten Championships last month and has not qualified a diver for the NCAA Championships in six years.