March 16, 2007

Click here to see photos from last night's finals, including Northwestern's record-setting 400 medley relay.

MINNEAPOLIS -- No. 5 Northwestern continued its roll from the previous night on day two of the NCAA Championships at the University of Minnesota Aquatic Center, earning seven more All-America honors and qualifying four entries for the finals while narrowly missing with two others during Friday afternoon's prelims.

The seven All-America honors earned by the 'Cats Friday afternoon pushed Northwestern's All-America-honors tally to 19 for the Championships. The Wildcats' Mike Alexandrov (Champaign, Ill./Centennial), Matt Grevers (Lake Forest, Ill./Lake Forest) and Kyle Bubolz (Waukesha, Wis./Waukesha North) all earned two All-America honors apiece while junior Bruno Barbic (Zagreb, Croatia/V. Gymnazija) grabbed one.

After winning the NCAA championship in the 400 medley relay last evening, the 'Cats began Friday afternoon's preliminaries with the shorter medley relay, the 200. The quartet of Grevers, Alexandrov, Bubolz and Barbic, who combined to swim a 1:25.14 during their victory at the Big Ten Championships, clocked the exact same time in Friday's prelims to earn All-America honors and will be seeded third in tonight's final.

Northwestern took a break during the 400 IM, as no Wildcat swimmer entered the event.

The next Wildcat to take to the pool was Bubolz, who entered the 100-fly prelims seeded second. The Big Ten champion won his heat, maintained his second seed and earned All-America honors when he touched the wall with a time of 46.18.

Eric Nilsson (Weston, Mass./Weston) saw his first action of the day during the next event, the 200 free prelims. The sophomore, seeded 22nd before the prelims, needed a 1:35.69 to make the consolation final and almost came up with it, setting a new personal-best time of 1:36.08 to place 19th in the event.

After Nilsson's narrow miss, Alexandrov took to the pool as the No. 1 seed of a very talented field in the 100 breast. The Wildcat senior swam a time of 52.69 to earn the fourth seed for tonight's final, which could prove to be one of the fastest finals in history.

Alexandrov earned his 25th All-America honor and fifth of the Championships by qualifying for the final. The Big Ten champion should be in the mix for the title, as he still holds the nation's fastest time (52.24) after the completion of prelims.

The final prelims of the day were in the 100 back, where Northwestern entered two swimmers, the two-time defending NCAA champion Grevers and Bubolz, swimming his second individual event of the afternoon's prelims. Grevers, seeded third, made the final comfortably by swimming a time of 46.37 which earned him the 26th All-America honor of his career and will put him in lane six for tonight's final.

Like Nilsson in the 200 free, Bubolz narrowly missed the consolation final in the 100 back, swimming a time of 47.61 to place 18th when he needed to clock a 47.56 to swim in tonight's final.

In addition to their four entries in championship heats tonight, the 'Cats will have a chance to earn four more All-America honors when they swim in the 800 free relay, which does not have any preliminary heats.

The finals for today's events will begin at 7 p.m. CT.

Real-time results for tonight's finals can be found at NCAA Championships.