Michigan Smokes Night One With Pair of Big Ten Records

BLOOMINGTON, Indiana, February 27. THE Michigan Wolverines came out strong in the first night of swimming at the Big Ten Men's Championships, likely letting the rest of the conference know it is swimming for second place behind the champions.

Michigan opened with a Big Ten record time of 1:23.25 from Miguel Ortiz (21.50), Bruno Ortiz (23.23), Sean Fletcher (19.75) and Zach Turk (18.77), a time that would have won the NCAA title a year ago. Arizona's foursome of Mitchell Friedemann (21.28), Kevin Cordes (23.25), Giles Smith (20.22) and Adam Small (18.78) turned in a 1:23.53 that still stands as the American record. Michigan came up about a second off Auburn's NCAA record of 1:22.36 from 2009.

Ohio State's Garrett Trebilcock (21.78), Tyler Stevenson (24.00), Tim Phillips (20.33) and Jason Schnur (18.68) earned second-place honors in 1:24.79, while Indiana's James Wells (21.46), Tanner Kurz (24.25), Cody Miller (20.44) and Daniel Kanorr (19.00) popped a third-place 1:25.15. The top five teams all beat the NCAA A cut as Penn State (1:25.38) and Iowa (1:25.82) also cleared 1:26. Minnesota finished sixth in 1:26.41 with a monster anchor leg of 18.39 from Derek Toomey.

Michigan's Anders Nielsen (1:33.74), Michael Wynalda (1:32.30), Connor Jaeger (1:34.14) and Kyle Whitaker (1:33.52) smoked the field in the men's 800 free relay with a 6:13.70 — another Big Ten record as well as a pool record. That's another time that would have won an NCAA title last year. The 2012 Texas quartet of Dax Hill, Clay Youngquist, Kip Darmody and Neil Caskey clocked a time of 6:15.55 with a powerful anchor leg from Caskey (1:33.26) to win a year ago.

Indiana's Eric Ress (1:35.20), Matt Gerth (1:36.07), Stephen Schmuhl (1:34.02) and James Barbiere (1:34.39) took second in 6:19.68, while Ohio State's Zach Holmes (1:34.93), Alex Miller (1:35.22), Rowan Williams (1:36.20) and Michael Disalle (1:34.89) touched third in 6:21.24. Wisconsin (6:23.98) and Minnesota (6:25.60) also posted NCAA A cuts.

Team Scores
Michigan 80
Indiana 66
Ohio State 66
Minnesota 54
Iowa 54
Penn State 52
Wisconsin 48
Purdue 40
Northwestern 38
Michigan State 38

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