The Penn State women's swimming and diving team may not have gotten off to the start it wanted at the Big Ten Championships, but a solid second-day showing may have it back on track.

After Wednesday night's relay events, the No. 14 Nittany Lions found themselves near the bottom of the pack at Ohio State's Bill and Mae McCorkle Aquatic Pavilion. The first event of the night, the 200-yard medley relay, saw the Penn State team of Sarah Haupt, Abby Hoisington, Amberle Biedermann and Kelly Nelson disqualified. With no points to show for their effort, the Lions were at a major disadvantage.

But Penn State's swimmers responded with a strong effort in the 800-yard freestyle relay, in which Nelson, Molly Crispell, Erin Morris and Jessica Barnes took second place with a time of 7:11.59.

Despite the solid performance, Penn State's earlier disqualification left them in 10th place overall with 34 points, while Wisconsin led the meet at the conclusion of Wednesday's events with 72 points.

Yesterday, the Nittany Lion women had a lot of ground to make up, but plenty of events remaining to do so. They swam well in the preliminary competitions to put themselves in a position to catch up.

Penn State had 10 swimmers qualify for last night's finals in the 500-yard freestyle and 200 IM events. These races, which concluded late last night, will go a long way in helping the Nittany Lions climb the points standings.

Morris, Crispell, Barnes, Patty Murphy, Jaime Kelly and Nikki Collins swam in the 500-yard freestyle finals last night. Nelson, O'Brien, Hoisington and Karie Haglund participated in the 200 IM.

O'Brien's preliminary time of 2:01.07 in the 200 IM also set a new pool record.

Last night's events set the tone for what is to come tonight and tomorrow in the championship meet. Penn State had a large contingent in the two events it competed in, occupying 10 of a total 48 spots. With many races still to go, this meet is far from over.