Bowen Becker on Minnesota Men: “I think we can impress some people”

^{Reported by James Sutherland.}

ACC VS BIG TEN COLLEGE CHALLENGE

• November 10-11, 2018
• West Lafayette, Indiana
• Morgan J. Burke Aquatic Center
• Dual meet scoring format
• SCY (25y)
• Meet Central
• Entries / Heat Sheets
• Live Results
• Live Diving Results
• BTN2Go Live Stream (Subscription Required)

After the first day of competition at the ACC vs Big Ten College Challenge at Purdue, the women’s meet looks to be all but decided and the men’s is still very much up for grabs.

The Big Ten women lead the ACC 123-44, while the men hold a three-point advantage of 85-82. This morning’s schedule will have the 200 medley relay open things up and the 400 free relay close things off, with the 1000 free, 200 free, 100 back, 100 breast, 200 fly, 50 free and 200 IM being contested individually.

On day 1 nearly every event was won it was stood up to be the fastest time in the NCAA so far this season. For a full event-by-event recap, click here.

SCORES AFTER DAY 1

WOMEN: BIG TEN 123, ACC 44

MEN: BIG TEN 85, ACC 82

MEN’S 50 FREE

1. Bowen Becker, B1G, 19.62
2. Justin Ress, ACC, 19.70
3. Andrej Barna, ACC, 19.82

Bowen Becker won another tight race for the B1G men in the 50 free, clocking 19.62 with seven of the eight swimmers cracking 20 seconds. Becker’s swim gets him under Robert Howard‘s NCAA leading 19.65, while runner-up Justin Ress and his 19.70 put him in 3rd.

MEN’S 400 FREE RELAY

1. ACC ‘A’, 2:49.64
2. B1G ‘A’, 2:49.77
3. ACC ‘B’, 2:53.81

Despite the meet being essentially out of reach, the ACC men did all they could do with an exciting win over the Big Ten in the 400 free relay.

Jacob Molacek gave them the lead with a 41.88 second leg, and then heading into the anchor leg with a lead of 0.13, Justin Ress and Mohamed Samy threw up identical splits of 41.75 to give the ACC  the victory in 2:49.64 to the Big Ten’s 2:49.77.

Joining Molacek and Ress on the winning relay was Coleman Stewart (43.21) on the lead-off and Andrej Barna (42.80). For the Big Ten, Zach Apple (42.78), Ruslan Gaziev (42.94) and Bowen Becker (42.30) all had strong splits before handing off to Samy.

ACC ‘B’ took 3rd in 2:53.81, as they made up eight points for the event. However, it wasn’t enough, as the Big Ten men win by a final score of 179-174.