The No. 8 Minnesota men's swimming and diving team began its quest for a third straight
Big Ten Championship this afternoon at Indiana's Counsilman-Billingsley Aquatic Center.
Minnesota qualified five swimmers for this evening's finals and six for the consolation
finals. Senior Adam Mitchell posted the top time in the 200
individual medley prelims.

Minnesota's five finalists is tied with Northwestern for the most while Michigan, Indiana
and Ohio State sent three apiece. The six consolation finalists is the most while Indiana
and Penn State qualifed four apiece.

Mitchell posted a pool record time of 1:45.74 and was an NCAA automatic qualifying
mark. Ohio State's Nate King clocked the second-best time of 1:46.85. Sophomore David
Plummer will swim in the consolation finals after clocking the 10th-best time of 1:49.11
and freshman Evan Bernier qualified 16th in 1:49.64. Other
Gophers competing in the 200
IM included: Russ Payne (20th/1:50.91), Jason
Timmer (31st/1:51.83) and Hiro Sugimoto
(41st/1:53.96). Overall, four of the Gophers' competitors posted career-best times.

Minnesota qualified two swimmers for the final of the 500 freestyle. Senior Travis
Beckerle
was fourth in a time of 4:23.06 while junior Zach Wood reached the final
with the seventh-
best time of 4:23.35. Freshman Mike Holmes had an impressive time
of 4:26.41 to qualify
12th. His time was over 10 seconds quicker than his previous best. Junior Andrew
Knoechel also reached the consolation final with the 16th-best time of 4:27.11. Other
Gophers in the 500 free included: Adam Weis (31st/4:32.87) and
xhref="http://www.gophersports.com/sports/player.asp?
sport_id=mswim&player_id=2193">Fabian Toth (43rd/4:
35.36).

The Gophers also qualified two for the finals of the 50 freestyle. Junior Ales
Volcansek tied
for the third-best time in 19.95 while junior Igor Cerensek was sixth in
20.06. Both are
repeat finalists in the event. Sophomore Tyler Schmidt swam a career-best
20.25 to
qualify 10th and senior Neil Osten also squeezed into the consolation
final in 16th with a
time of 20.50. Several Gophers narrowly missed the consolation final. Sophomore Matt
Engel was 17th, just .02 seconds away from making the evening session and freshman
Colin Lee-To was 19th, just .03 seconds away.
Other Gophers in the 50 freestyle included:
Mario Delac (24th/20.63) and Sean
Kelly (58th/21.83).

John Schmidt led a group of four Gophers in 1-meter diving. The senior finished 10th
overall with a score of 301.95 but did not reach the top eight to qualify for the this
evening's finals. Junior Shaun Kennedy finished in the scoring with a 14th place finish with
a tally of 289.10 while freshman Cole Young took 15th with 284.25 points. Sophomore Joe
Skeate finished 21st with a score of 256.20.

The finals session begins at 7 p.m. In addition to the three individual events
mentioned and the 1-meter diving, the 200 freestyle relay and 400 medley relays will take
place this evening.