The Penn State women's swimming and diving team started off last week's Big Ten Championship meet doing something it hardly ever does: scoring no points while getting disqualified in its first event. It ended the week doing something that the program has never done before: winning the Big Ten title in back-to-back seasons.

The No. 14 Nittany Lions outlasted the field of competitors at the Bill and Mae McCorkle Aquatic Pavilion in Columbus, Ohio, totaling 552 points for the week. Minnesota finished a close second with 536.5.

To the Penn State swimmers, it was an exciting conclusion to a long season of training and competition. But it was not entirely surprising to them.

"We are a better team than anyone out there. Luckily, the points showed that," senior Sarah Haupt said. Haupt added that even if things had not gone their way, she still would have felt that Penn State is the class of the Big Ten.

This is the kind of confidence with which the women carried themselves all year long. They took that attitude with them to Big Ten Championships, and the results showed it.

"We returned a pretty strong group from last year, and we kept a steady approach all season long," Penn State head coach Bill Dorenkott said in a press release. "We did the things we needed to do to win the championship."

Things did not go so smoothly for the team in the beginning of the meet, though. The Lions made a rare mental mistake in the 200-yard medley relay when freshman Kelly Nelson started her leg a split-second too early. The result was a disqualification that erased the team's third-place finish and took away 32 points. The women were not to be discouraged, though.

"That was a race we usually win, so not only did we not win, but we didn't get the points," senior Amberle Biedermann said. "But the DQ didn't worry anyone."

On the heels of that setback, the Penn State 800-yard freestyle relay responded with an inspired second-place performance in which all swimmers raced to a personal-best time.

After the first day of competition, the Lions found themselves in 10th place, 38 points back of Wisconsin, the leader at the time.

Dorenkott wanted the team to stay focused on its races, assuring the women that if they swam to the best of their abilities, the points would take care of themselves.

The Lions took that message into the rest of the meet, racking up points in individual events and leading by two at the end of the third day. It was a far cry from last year, when they ran away with the championship by almost 200 points, but with one day to go, it was their meet to lose.

Going into the 400-yard freestyle relay, the last event of the meet, Penn State held a slim lead over Minnesota. The team, wanting to avoid a mishap like the first night's disqualification, played it safe and came in 10th to wrap up the championship.

"In our last relay, we just knew we needed to finish," said Haupt, who along with freshman Kaitlin O'Brien was named to the All-Big Ten first team. "We probably had the slowest reaction times of anyone out there."

But it was good enough to clinch Penn State's second-straight Big Ten title.

"It was a dream come true," Biedermann said. "It's something that's never been done before."