One thing has remained constant through three days of the men’s Big Ten swim and dive championships, and that is IU sitting atop the conference.
After Friday’s action in Columbus, Ohio, the IU leads the competition with 999 points followed by Ohio State with 939.5 and Michigan with 923.5.
The day was marked by three more individual conference titles for IU including wins in the 200-yard freestyle, the 100-yard breaststroke and the 3-meter dive.
In the 200-yard freestyle, junior Blake Pieroni defended his conference title with an NCAA A cut time of 1:32.13. Pieroni’s time gives him the two fastest 200-yard freestyle marks in the country this season.
In the 100-yard breaststroke, sophomore Ian Finnerty repeated as conference champion with an IU, Big Ten and Big Ten meet record of 51.38. Finnerty’s time was also good for the NCAA A cut and was the second fastest time in the country this year.
The 3-meter springboard dive provided the most drama of the night as junior Michael Hixon came back from a deficit to win with an IU, Big Ten meet and McCorkle Aquatic Center record score of 520.40. Hixon also became the first IU diver to score higher than 500 points in the event.
Hixon went in to his final dive trailing Ohio State’s Colin Zeng by 96.30 points. The sophomore then hit his forward 4-1/2 somersault tuck for a score of 106.40 to win the event.
Other results of note include sophomore Vini Lanza’s second place finish in the 100-yard butterfly with an NCAA A cut time in a school record 45.07 seconds. Lanza now has the nine best times in school history in the event.
Pieroni, seniors Anze Tavcar, Sam Lorentz and junior Ali Khalfalla broke the school record in the 200-yard freestyle relay, finishing second overall to Ohio State by just 0.11 seconds.
The Hoosiers will be back in action Saturday at 11 a.m. in the final day of action at the 2017 Big Ten Championships.
Ben Portnoy
