MINNEAPOLIS, Minn.; March 17, 2007 ¨C The Penn State men¡¯s swimming and diving team wrapped up competition at the 2007 NCAA Men¡¯s Swimming and Diving Championships on Saturday. For the third straight day, no Nittany Lions were able to advance onto the finals. The best finish of the day was by Pat Schirk (Pottstown, Pa.), who placed 18th in the 200 back. That equaled the finish of the 200 free relay team, which also finished 18th on Thursday.
Schirk swam the 200 back in 1:44.08, his third-fastest time of the year. In the 1650 free finals, Chris Sullivan (Naples, Fla.) placed 22nd in a time of 15:20.94, his second-fastest time of the year and his career but short of his school record-setting swim of 15:11.58 at last month¡¯s Big Ten Championships.
In the 100 freestyle, Dan Kaiserian (Bryn Mawr, Pa.) placed 51st in :44.77, his third-fastest time of the year and the fourth-fastest of his career. Sean Swanepoel (Lincoln Mead, South Africa) was disqualified.
Kyle Miranda (Louisville, Colo.) provided the highlight of the day for the Nittany Lions with a career-best time in the 200 breaststroke. He swam it in 1:58.86, nearly a second better than his previous best, and finished tied for 23rd place.
In the 200 butterfly, Tim Williams (North Bend, Ohio) finished 28th in 1:48.07. The 400 free relay team swam the second-fastest time of the year on the team in that event and finished 20th in 2:58.08.
Although no Nittany Lions scored at NCAAs for the first time in three years, the nine qualifiers were the most for Penn State since 2002. Of those nine qualifiers, seven will return next year, three juniors and four sophomores.
