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MINNEAPOLIS — The University of Iowa men’s swimming and diving team wrapped up the 2018 Big Ten Championships with its second NCAA automatic qualifying time and five school records on Saturday at the Jean K. Freeman Aquatic Center.
In the final event of the championships, the Hawkeyes’ 400-freestyle relay swam to an NCAA “A” qualifying time, finishing with a time of 2:51.58.
The quartet of Jack Smith, Matt Kamin, Will Scott, and Joe Myhre took down a six-year school record of 2:52.53, which was previously held by Duncan Partridge, Ryan Phelan, Jordan Huff, and Paul Gordon.
Iowa also got school-record performances individually from Kenneth Mende, Anton Hoherz, and Smith.
Mende was the Hawkeyes’ top finisher, swimming to a bronze medal in the 200-yard backstroke. He finished with a time of 1:42.12, breaking the school record of 1:42.19 that he previously shared with Grant Betulius.
Smith broke his own school record in the 100-yard freestyle twice on Saturday. After swimming a 42.93 in the prelims, he sprinted to a record time of 42.71 seconds in the finals to finish sixth overall.
Hoherz had a breakthrough performance off the platform in the prelims, posting a score of 415.65 to topple Addison Boschult’s school record (409.20) that was set in 2015. Hoherz went on to finish eighth overall with 381 points in the finals.
The Hawkeyes also got a ninth-place finish from Jerzy Twarowski in the 200 fly with a time of 1:44.80. Twarowski won the “B” final, while sophomore Michael Tenney placed 13th overall in 1:46.87. Tenney swam a career-best 1:46.35 in the prelims — a time that ranks fifth all-time.
Senior Colter Allen placed 21st in the 200 fly with a time of 1:48.32. His 1:47.79 in the prelims was a career-best and the 10th-best time in school history.
Senior Chris Dawson capped off his strong championships with a 10th-place finish in the 1,650 freestyle. He finished with a career-best time of 15:07.35 — the fourth-fastest in the record books.
Senior Thomas Rathbun also finaled in the 200 back, where he finished 13th overall with a time of 1:44.47. Rathbun’s 1:43.26 in the prelims was a PR and was fourth-best in school history.
Freshman Daniel Swanepoel placed 12th in the 200 breast in 1:56.86 — a time that is third-best all-time. Sophomore Weston Credit placed 21st in 1:58.72.
Along with Smith, Iowa had a quartet of bonus finalists in the 100 free. Scott won the “C” final in 43.72 to finish 17th overall, while Kamin was the runner-up in 43.85 to place 18th. He swam a career-best 43.68 in the prelims.
Michal Brzus placed 21st in 44.08 (swam a 43.88 in prelims), while Myhre was 22nd in 44.09 after posting a time of 43.76 in prelims.
Iowa finished the Big Ten Championships in seventh place in the team standings with 614.5 points — a 190.5-point improvement from last season and the most points since the conference went to the 24-place scoring format.
Indiana won the title with 1,658 points, followed by Michigan (1617.5) and Ohio State (1300.5).
