March 25, 2011

Madison, Wis. -- Daniel Lester entered the pool once again Friday for day two of the NCAA Championships in Minneapolis.
On his schedule was the 100-yard butterfly, in which the Wisconsin sophomore used a school-record time of 46.19 to place 12th in the preliminaries and advance to the finals.

Lester’s record-breaking time surpassed his old record of 46.46, which was set at the Big Ten Championships on Feb. 25.

Once in the finals, Lester touched the wall in 46.31 to take 10th-place in the event. The top-10 finish earned Wisconsin seven points, placing the Badgers in 26th-place at the championships.

“I was really happy with how he performed today,” head coach Eric Hansen said. “He was able to break the school-record and place us in 26th overall going into tomorrow.”

Lester’s finish improved upon Thursday’s 200-yard individual medley, when he swam strong but was disqualified during his preliminary heat for a kick infraction.

The sophomore will look to build even more on this improvement Saturday with the 200-yard butterfly, an event that he earned All-American honors in at the 2010 NCAA Championships.

“He has a big event tomorrow,” Hansen said. “This is something he has been preparing two years for. I feel very favorably about how he is going to fair tomorrow.”

Saturday marks the final day of the NCAA Championships, with the preliminaries once again starting at 12 p.m. and the finals being aired on espn3.com at 7 p.m.