Feb. 23, 2012
IOWA CITY, Iowa - For the second straight night, the Penn State medley relay corps came up strong finishing second at the Big Ten Championships in the 400 edition, breaking a school record for the second straight night. After two days of competition, the Nittany Lions sit in sixth place with 118 points, eight points behind fifth-place Purdue (124).
A day after the 200 medley relay team broke a team record, the 400 medley relay took it upon itself to do the same for Penn State. Three members of the record-breaking 200 squad--Nate Savoy (Reading, Pa.), Mitch Scherer (Pottstown, Pa.) and Sean Grier (Hummelstown, Pa.)--took again to Iowa's pool on Thursday to try and capture Penn State's first Big Ten relay championship since 2002. Penn State swam a time of 3:09.09, besting its fastest season time (3:12.56) by over three seconds as Michigan (3:07.32) swam one of the fastest times in the country this year to take gold. Shane Austin (Kennett Square, Pa.) anchored the squad holding off Ohio State's Jason Schnur in the final leg to best the Buckeyes by .28.
Penn State took home 34 points in the 400 medley relay and received a boost in the 200 IM with two Lions, Scott Marino (Scotch Plains, N.J.) and Savoy, in the A Final. Marino, who qualified second, finished in fifth with a time of 1:45.04, just .07 off his prelim swim. Savoy finished in eighth, earning his first individual points in Big Ten Championship competition. Matt Salig (Downingtown, Pa.) captured 14th place in the B Final in a season-best time of 1:47.80.
Austin took part in the B Final of the 50 free, finishing in 13th, breaking the 20-second barrier for the second straight race (19.97) as PSU's only other point-getter on Thursday night.
Freshman Nick Ankosko (East Brunswick, N.J.) broke his personal best time in the 500 freestyle, finishing in a time of 4:20.99. He won the C Final by over two seconds and lowered the second-fastest time in PSU history for the event.
Over at the diving well, Alex Marchinski (Shillington, Pa.) finished the 1-meter springboard competition in 25th place, scoring 274.55 in the preliminaries. He will compete in the 3-meter on Friday.
Friday's action kicks off at Noon ET/11 a.m. CT from Iowa's Campus and Recreation Center with preliminaries. The 3-Meter springboard trials are at 1:30 p.m., while the finals will kick off at 7:30 p.m. ET/6:30 p.m. CT.
--NITTANY LIONS--