2015 Men’s NCAAs Day 2 Mid-Major Roundup: A Pair of Top-5 Finishes Put BYU and WKU in Top 25 Teams

Men’s NCAA DI Championships

• Thursday, March 26 – Saturday, March 28
• University of Iowa, Iowa City
• Prelims 11AM/Finals 7PM (Central Time)
• Defending Champion: California – results
• Iowa Championship Central / NCAA Championship Central
• Prelims (& Thursday finals) Live feed: Hawkeye Sports / Finals Live feed: ESPN3 (Friday & Saturday)
• PSA: What to do when live results aren’t updating
• Live results

Standings

23. Brigham Young – 15
25. Western Kentucky – 13
28. University of Nevada, Las Vegas – 12

A Pair of Top-Five Finishes on Day Two

While the rest of their teammates were finishing up the CSCAA Collegiate Classic at the Rockwall ISD Aquatic Center in Texas, BYU’s Jake Taylor and Western Kentucky’s Fabian Schwingenschlogl were standing on their respective podia at the Campus Recreation and Wellness Center on the University of Iowa campus.

Taylor placed fourth in the 100 back, an impressive feat for two reasons. First, it marks the highest finish by a mid-major at NCAAs in two years, since Jacob Hanson, of Eastern Michigan went 1:39.87 to take fourth in the 200 back in 2013. Second, even more noteworthy, this was the culmination of his first full season back in the pool after taking a two-year break from the sport to serve a church mission in El Salvador and Belize.

WKU’s Schwingenschlogl, meanwhile, earned his second consecutive All-American accolades in the 100 breast. After finishing eighth in last year’s NCAA final, he went 51.66 to take sixth place this year. The highest any mid-major swimmer placed at the 2014 NCAA Championships was seventh (Navy’s Thomas Duvall in the 200 free).

The mid-majors have a long history of qualifying swimmers and divers for the NCAA Division I meet but without the kind of depth that the Big Five conferences (SEC, ACC, Big 12, Big Ten and Pacific-12) enjoy, they don’t often score a lot of points.

Quick Hits

• UNLV has had a relay score at NCAAs in each of the last three years. On Thursday, their 200 free relay of Dillon Virva (19.37), Tom Paco-Pedroni (19.42), Or Sabatier (19.51), and Henrique Machado (19.34) placed 11th in 1:17.64.
• The Ivy League qualified a good number of athletes this year, but so far none have made finals. Princeton had an unfortunate Day One, leading to an early exit for all six qualifiers.
• Harvard’s Mike Mosca, the most talented diver the Ivy League has seen in a good long time, hasn’t lived up to his reputation on the boards yet. Mosca was an All-American last year in 3-meter diving.
• None of Penn’s or Yale’s decorated distance swimmers have made it out of prelims. Yale’s Brian Hogan and Kei Hyogo went 32nd and 42nd in the 500 free, while teammate Rob Harder was 40th in the 200 free. Penn’s Chris Swanson was 34th in the 500; Eric Schultz finished 35th in the 200.
• David Jakl of Columbia went 32nd in the 100 fly and didn’t swim the 100 back.
• Harvard’s Jack Manchester swam a best time in the 100 back but it was only good enough for 38th place.