BY KYLE O''NEILL
Daily Sports Writer
Published February 22, 2002
After two difficult runs in the 400-yard medley relay and the 50-yard freestyle, the Michigan women"s swimming and diving team currently sits in fourth place, 85 points behind first-place Penn State in the Big Ten Championships.
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"The 400 medley relay wasn"t our best effort I felt, because we"re better than (fourth-place in that event)," Michigan coach Jim Richardson said. "We"re having some very good swims. More than a couple of people had lifetime-best swims (last night), but that relay was a relay we needed to swim well in, and we didn"t."
In the 50-yard freestyle, Laura Kaznecki had her best preliminary run ever with a time of 23.24 yesterday, but in last night"s finals she found herself underwater a little too long on the start and fell behind the other seven competitors.
"She just got stuck underwater on the breakout," Richardson said. "She stayed under two strokes too long, and in a race that short there is no margin for error."
Though Michigan isn"t near the top of the leaderboard, there is a tight race for the top three places between Penn State, Indiana and Wisconsin.
Indiana had its first taste of the lead last night after it placed four divers in the top eight of the 1-meter event, including first-place finisher Sara Reiling. Penn State reclaimed the top spot after winning the 400-yard medley relay in the final event of the night.
For the second straight night, though, Wisconsin provided the most dominating performance. Wednesday it easily won the 800-yard freestyle relay with a NCAA qualifying time of 7:14.6. Last night, freshman Carly Piper continued the Badgers" success in the distance events with a meet record and NCAA qualifying time of 4:43.41 in the 500 free.
Even with the disappointments for the Wolverines on this second of four days of competition, there is still hope for individual success.
Today the Wolverines will send all four of their NCAA qualifiers Annie Weilbacher, Kelli Stein, Lindsay Carlberg and Amy McCullough to compete in the 100-yard butterfly, 100 breaststroke, 100 backstroke and 200 freestyle, respectively. The other events for the day are the 400 individual medley and 3-meter diving.
