IU swimmers sputter in Day 1

IU coach Kris Kirchner came into the Big Ten Championships with high hopes that his team would swim well.\n"I would like to come out of there with everybody swimming fast, at their best, and scoring their best," Kirchner said before the three-day meet, which began Thursday in Minneapolis.\nBut when the Hoosiers jumped into the pool, his expectations fell short. Most of his hopes were dashed in the preliminaries. \nIn the day's first event, the 200-yard freestyle relay, IU advanced to the first heat of finals. Freshman Claes Andersson, sophomore Kevin Euans and seniors Jason Carlberg and Don Gold claimed the seventh-place spot in the finals with a season-best time of 3:15.47.\nBut the initial event was the best for the Hoosier swimmers. Gold said the Hoosiers' best shot for making the NCAA tournament finals are the 400 and 200 medley relays. Last year, the Hoosiers' 400 medley relay squad missed the NCAA by one tenth of a second.\n"We are really psyched up for those events," Gold said.\nThe relay team might continue in postseason action, but was one of only two representatives to advance past preliminaries. The only Hoosier to make the finals was senior diver Tom Davidson, who scored 368.10.\n"It was a good preliminary; tonight I'm going to focus on myself and not pay attention to any other divers," Davidson said. \nDavidson went on to win the 1-meter dive, beating four-time Big Ten Diver of the Week Dan Croasten of Minnesota. Croasten placed second. Should Davidson capture the 3-meter title today, it would be the first double-win in a Big Ten meet in his career. \nSophomores Adam Hazes and Eric Robson placed 10th and 13th in the 1-meter competition.\n"This is my third consecutive 1-meter title, and I just can't believe it," Davidson said. "My first year competing, I never thought I would win three out of four titles. It's pretty amazing. It wasn't my best performance. I missed a dive, but I went on and ended up winning."\nThe highest an IU swimmer placed was 12th, that coming from Gold, who swam the 50 freestyle in 20.4 seconds. Penn State's Brian Hostetler won the event with a time of 19.92. \nAndersson, Euans, Carlberg and Gold placed seventh in the 200 freestyle relay with a season-best time of 1:48.91.\nIU sits in seventh place with 103 points, but trails fourth-place Northwestern by only 11 points. Minnesota leads after day one, followed by Penn State and Wisconsin.\n"We're in the fastest Big Ten meet in history," Kirchner said. "It's a great meet. Everybody's swimming fast and we're looking forward to Friday.