It didn't bring home the title, but the women's swimming and diving team still managed to have a winning weekend.

The Nittany Lions attained their ultimate season goal — improvement — by recording their best-ever performance with a second-place finish at the Big Ten championships this weekend at Indiana University.

Despite resting ten points behind the Nittany Lions heading into the final day of competition, Michigan made up the deficit to edge Penn State for the overall team championship, 582-557.

Indiana (460.50), Wisconsin (382) and Northwestern (359) rounded out the top five.

"I've coached teams that have been on top and teams that have been on the bottom, and can tell you second place is very painful position," Penn State women's swimming coach Bill Dorenkott said.

"The question is, when you come out of a meet like this, how do you come out? Are you hungry, or do you feel pretty good about it? And I know, in my gut, I'm pretty hungry."

Fortunately for Dorenkott, this weekend's meet indicated that Penn State's future is bright.

A pair of freshmen, Corrie Clark and Kristen Woodring, led the Nittany Lions through the three-day event.

Clark started off the meet on Thursday with a second-place finish in the 400 individual medley, and she combined with Katie Bruzda, Piper Chamberlin and Woodring to take second in the 400 medley relay.

On Friday, Clark won the 100 butterfly, and on Saturday her time of 2:12.16 in the 200 breast was good enough for first place and a new pool record.

"This is different than anything else I've ever done," Clark said.

"The energy was so high and I was intimidated at first. I didn't expect anything coming in so I'm very excited about my performance."

Along with Clark, Woodring was another sign of good things to come for the Lions.

In addition to the 400 medley relay, Woodring was part of the winning 200 medley relay team, along with Chamberlin, Katie Hostetler and Megan Smith, that set both new pool and meet records with a time of 1:40.31.

"It was a total team effort," Hostetler said. "We all had good starts and we just went out and swam the best we could."

Aside from her part in this record-setting relay, Woodring also won the 100 breast on Friday, setting new pool and meet records, and on Saturday she finished second behind Clark in the 200 breast.

"All year this meet was our main focus with the attitude that the team comes first," Woodring said. "I would have never been able to do this without my team. They were behind me all the way."

Based on her accomplishments and also on her performance throughout the entire season, Woodring was named Big Ten freshman of the year.

In addition, all event winners were named to the All-Big Ten team, and Katie Anderson was an at-large selection for placing second in the 500 free, third in the 200 free, and seventh in the 1650 free.

Furthermore, Clark, Woodring, Anderson, and the 200 medley relay team earned automatic qualification for the NCAA championships.

According to Dorenkott, the honors the team earned and the records that were broken served to ease the pain of coming close, but not close enough, to the championship.

"Its nice," he said. "It's rewarding, and it's fitting because the team has worked hard. They've worked hard for 18 months leading up to this meet."

Also, the 800 free relay team of Katie Anderson, Alecia Kornacki, Sally Anderson, and Melissa Wilson finished seventh, and the 200 free relay of Chamberlin, Hostetler, Kristin Weinhold, and Steph Thomovsky came in third.

Aside from the relays, other Penn State swimmers and divers qualifying for individual event finals and finishing in the top eight were: Thomovsky (6th, 50 free), Chamberlin (7th, 50 free), Smith (5th, 100 butterfly), Christina Stocki (8th, 200 free; 6th, 100 back) Lindsay Fraschilla (4th, 100 breast), Barb Mulshine (7th, 100 breast), Bruzda (7th, 200 back), Hostetler (7th, 100 free), Jenna Lopano (7th, 200 butterfly) and Jaime Jaax (2nd, 3-meter diving; 7th, 1-meter).

The appearance of so many different names in the finals was no surprise to Dorenkott, or to the rest of the conference.

"We're known as a team with real good depth," Dorenkott said. "I think this year you add to it quality, and that's a good combination. On a daily basis our kids are challenged, and they challenge each other and that makes a big difference, in terms of competing, leading up to a championship."