The Penn State men's swimming and diving team will take center stage today at the NCAA swimming and diving championships after the women's team finished 15th last week.
The meet will begin today at the Long Island Aquatic Center in East Meadow, NY, and will feature 235 swimmers from 42 teams. The Big Ten alone has 51 participants including at least one from each school.
Two weeks ago at the NCAA Zone "A" Diving Championships, junior Marc Gastaldo qualified to participate after winning the three-meter board with a score of 539.7. He is the sole representative for the Nittany Lions.
Gastaldo is coming off a successful Big Ten championships in which he finished fifth in the three-meter with a score of 520.2. Last year, he only finished in sixth place at the Big Tens with a score of 508.75 and also made the Academic All-Big Ten Team.
Gastaldo has made great improvements from two years ago when he finished 10th in the Big Tens and only fifth in the zone one-meter. This is his first trip to the NCAAs. Minnesota, the winner of the Big Ten championships, has the most participants with 12 and is followed by Michigan, the runner-up, with nine and Wisconsin for seven.
Michigan brings three players with Big Ten individual honors. Peter Vanderkaay was the Co-Swimmer of the Year along with Matt Grevers of Northwestern. Jason Coben was the Diver of the Championships, and Jon Urbanchek was the Swimming Coach of the Year. Coben and Vanderkaay also made the first team all-conference team.
The Lions are coming off a successful Big Ten championship. Although they only finished seventh, they scored 299.5 points and fulfilled Penn State men's swimming and diving coach Bill Dorenkott's main goal.
During that meet, senior Todd Minnier qualified for NCAAs with a 1:36.17 time in the 200-yard freestyle, but is not participating this week. He did not comment on why he is not going.
The Lions will be looking to improve on their 34th place finish last year. Eugene Botes, who graduated at the end of last season, led the team with a 23rd place finish in the 100-yard freestyle (43.91) and a 10th place finish in the 100-yard butterfly.
Dorenkott has said this has been rebuilding year, but is looking for a good meet. The meet will conclude on Saturday.
