March 21, 2007
Great Weekend
Last weekend was an outstanding one for our Athletic Department. Our wrestling and men's swimming teams won a combined four national championships and their student-athletes earned a total of 31 All-America honors at their respective NCAA Championships! Our wrestling team finished fourth in the NCAA (matching our highest finish ever), as Jake Herbert won our first national championship since 1990 (when current Assistant Director of Development Jack Griffin won a national championship). Ryan Lang, Dustin Fox and Mike Tamillow also earned All-America honors. Our men's swimming also had a strong showing, finishing sixth in the NCAA Championships, our highest finish ever in the modern era, as they won three national championships and set two NCAA records. Senior Matt Grevers led the way with his third NCAA individual title and first NCAA relay title. He teamed with senior Mike Alexandrov, junior Bruno Barbic and junior Kyle Bubolz to win the NCAA championship and set the NCAA record in the 400 medley relay. Alexandrov capped off his career in fine style, winning his first NCAA individual championship and setting an NCAA record in the 100 breast. Congratulations to Tim Cysewski, Bob Groseth and their student-athletes for these outstanding performances.
Top-10 Rankings
In addition to the top-10 finishes of our wrestling and men's swimming teams, four of our other teams are presently ranked in their sports' top 10. Our women's fencing team, ranked fifth in the nation, heads to the NCAA Championships this weekend. Our women's lacrosse team, two-time defending national champions, and softball team, an NCAA finalist last year, are both ranked in the top 10. Both teams have played very challenging schedules early in the season, have strong senior leadership and both have great chances to win NCAA championships. Finally, women's tennis, which has been our strongest team over the last decade (eight straight Big Ten championships), is currently ranked ninth in the country. They made a breakthrough last year in the NCAA Championships (making it to the quarterfinals and the doubles team of Cristelle Grier and Alexis Prousis winning an national championship), and can also compete for a national title.
Spring Practice
Our football student-athletes will quickly jump into spring practice when they return from spring break next week. Spring practice begins at 6:30 a.m. on Monday, March 26. This will be the first time that our team has conducted spring practices in the morning. The practices were moved to the morning because there are fewer conflicts with morning classes than in the afternoon. The annual spring game will be held on Saturday, April 21.