Lester finishes NCAA Championships as All-American
March 26, 2011 | Men's Swimming & Diving
March 26, 2011
Madison, Wis.-- The final day of the NCAA Championships became the best day for Daniel Lester after he earned All-American honors for the second straight season in the 200-yard butterfly.
In the process, Lester, who became the first Badger swimmer since 2005 to earn All-American honors last season, broke a school-record for the second straight day.
The Wisconsin sophomore entered the preliminaries seeded 14th and shattered his qualifying time (1:43.98) by more than one second, touching the wall in 1:42.59 to finish fourth in the preliminaries.
Lester’s time put him mere hundredths of a second behind Scott Rice’s school-record of 1:42.53.
Rice’s record held for only a few more hours, until the finals when Lester finished in fifth-place with a time of 1:42.49.
The All-American performance vaulted Wisconsin into 24th-place in the meet with a total of 21 points, besting last season’s meet, in which Lester earned 12 points and the team finished in 30th-place.
“We entered the meet with the hope of finishing in the top-25 and scoring 20 points, and we bested both of those goals,” head coach Eric Hansen said.
The closing of the NCAA Championships signifies the end of the 2010-11 season for the Wisconsin men’s swimming and diving team, but leaves the team with confidence heading into the offseason.
“I was really pleased with, not only Dan’s performance, but also with where the men’s team is headed,” Hansen said. “Dan was the only representative this year but next year is going to be much different for us.”
