Charlie Rimkus will face several of the Big Ten's other top distance swimmers at this weekend's quad dual meet.Charlie Rimkus will face several of the Big Ten's other top distance swimmers at this weekend's quad dual meet.

Many of Big Ten's Best Battle This Weekend at Quad Dual Meet

Jan. 26, 2011

EVANSTON, Ill. -- Northwestern concludes its run-up to the Big Ten Championships with a conference quad meet this weekend against No. 11 Ohio State, No. 13 Michigan and Penn State at the Canham Natatorium in Ann Arbor, Mich.

The two-day meet begins at 4 p.m. CT Friday, Jan. 28, with the first of two sessions. The second half of the competition gets underway at 10 a.m. CT Saturday, Jan. 29. Live results are available by linking to .

The Wildcats will be facing their second and third ranked opponents in a week's time after narrowly falling in the final event to No. 24 Iowa in Iowa City last Saturday. Northwestern has closed its regular season with a multiple-team dual against either OSU, U-M or PSU in each of the last five years; In 2007, the Wildcats knocked off then-No. 12 Michigan and then-No. 13 Ohio State to cap a perfect 8-0 dual-meet slate.

With many swimmers ranked highly in the conference according to Collegeswimming.com, the four-team meet will serve as an excellent preview for the upcoming Big Ten Championships (Feb. 23-26; Minneapolis, Minn.). Some events of note are:

• In the 500 free, NU's Charlie Rimkus (Tustin, Calif./Beckman) ranks sixth in the Big Ten behind two Michigan swimmers and one from Ohio State.

• In the 200 IM, the four teams combine for eight of the top-10 swimmers in the league, including NU's fourth-ranked Alex Tyler (Birmingham, Mich./Birmingham Groves).

• In the 400 IM, eight of the top-10 swimmers will be competing in this weekend's meet, including Tyler (fourth) and Rimkus (sixth) from NU.

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