Tim Williams won the 200 butterfly and in doing so, made the first NCAA 'B' cut of his career at last weekend's Bell Grand Prix.
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa.; November 28, 2006 - The Penn State men??s and women??s swimming teams swept the Big Ten Weekly Swimming Awards on Tuesday as Kelly Nelson (West Chester, Pa.) was named the Women??s Swimmer of the Week and Tim Williams (North Bend, Ohio) was named the Men??s Swimmer of the Week. Both swimmers performed extremely well at last weekend??s Bell Grand Prix meet held in Toronto, Ontario as the Nittany Lions (men??s and women??s teams combined) finished in third place out 69 teams. This is the first time that either of the pair of sophomores have earned a Big Ten weekly award.
Nelson swam in six events for the Nittany Lions and picked up points in all of them while swimming one NCAA ??A?? automatic qualifying time and four NCAA ??B?? provisional qualifying times. The West Chester, Pa. native earned her first ??A?? cut of the year in the 200 butterfly with a time of 2:12.23 in the short course meter pool for a third place finish. An honorable mention All-American last year as a freshman in both the 200 fly and the 400 IM, she also posted a ??B?? time in the 400 IM at 4:47.78 for a seventh place finish. She also posted a ??B?? time in the 100 fly (1:01.67) for a sixth place finish and was a part of the sixth place 400 and 800 freestyle relay teams that also both earned NCAA ??B?? cuts. Nelson was also a part of the seventh place 400 medley relay team, Penn State??s ??B?? team in that event, which also earned points.
Kelly Nelson swam to one NCAA 'A' automatic qualifying time and four NCAA 'B' cuts at the Bell Grand Prix. |
Williams earned the only first place finish of the meet for either the men or women as he won the 200 butterfly in an NCAA ??B?? time of 1:58.96. Williams also had the fastest time in the morning preliminaries out of 46 swimmers. He was also less than a second off a ??B?? cut in the 100 fly, in which he finished seventh. He also finished ninth in the 400 IM and was part of the eighth place 800 freestyle relay team, Penn State??s ??B?? team in that event. He earned points for the Nittany Lions in all four of his events. The ??B?? cut in the 200 fly was the first NCAA cut of his career for Williams, who missed a good portion of his freshman season last year with mono.
The Penn State swimming and diving teams will host West Chester in a dual meet this Saturday, December 2 at 1:00 p.m. at McCoy Natatorium in what has been selected as the SwimmingWorldMagazine.com Dual Meet of the Week.