Feb. 24, 2010
Day 1 Results | Day 1 Results 
MADISON, Wis. -- With only two events on the opening-day slate, the Wisconsin men’s swimming and diving team eased into the 2010 Big Ten Championships Wednesday.
That doesn’t mean the Badgers took it easy, however, as they clocked NCAA championships consideration times in both the 200-yard medley and 800-yard freestyle relays at Ohio State’s McCorkle Aquatic Pavilion.
The Badgers claimed an eighth-place finish in the 200 medley relay in a season-best time of 1:28.92 and clocked in at 6:35.23 to finish 10th in the 800 free relay.
Senior Derrick O’Donnell led off the medley relay with a split of 22.77 for the 50-yard backstroke leg and was followed by senior Eric Johnson, who clocked his breaststroke leg in 24.89. Newcomer Daniel Lester handled the butterfly in 21.39 before senior Phil Davies anchored the effort with a 19.87-second split on the freestyle leg.
Michigan claimed the win in the event with a time of 1:25.72, followed by Ohio State (1:26.38) in second and Penn State (1:26.65) in third.
The Wolverines also took top honors in the 800 free relay with a Big Ten record and NCAA automatic qualifying time of 6:15.80. Ohio State earned a runner-up finish, and an NCAA “A” cut, by recording a time of 6:23.19.
For the Badgers, it was the quartet of junior Kyle Thompson, senior Phil Davies, sophomore Chris Nemeth and sophomore Wes Lagerhausen. After Thompson led off with a 200-yard split of 1:39.17, Davies followed with a 1:38.98 and Nemeth clocked his leg in 1:38.28. Lagerhausen’s anchor split came in at 1:38.80.
The Big Ten championships continue Thursday with preliminaries in the 500-yard freestyle, 200-yard individual medley and 50-yard freestyle beginning at 11 a.m., followed by the 1-meter diving competition. Finals in those events, as well as the 400-yard medley relay, begin at 6 p.m.
