March 26, 2010
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Sophomore Brian Alden (Lansdale, Pa.) opened his 2010 NCAA Championships campaign at McCorkle Pavilion with a 37th-place showing in the 50 freestyle.
The freestyle specialist out of Neuqua Valley High School, will have two more opportunities to compete at the NCAA Men's and Swimming Championships hosted by Ohio State. The top 16 preliminary times qualify for the evening's finals.
Alden swam a time of 19.98, .20 above his seeded time. Nine swimmers swam below the McCorkle Pavilion Pool Record time of 19.40 set in 2007 on a fast first day of swimming. The final qualifying time was 19.63.
Alden is slated to compete in the 200 freestyle on Saturday afternoon as well as the 100 freestyle on Sunday afternoon. Alden is Penn State's lone representative at this year's Championships.
Sunday's competition was added after several participants contracted the norovirus this week, pushing action originally scheduled for Thursday back 24 hours. Preliminaries are set to begin at Noon on both Saturday and Sunday with finals scheduled for 7:00 p.m.
--NITTANY LIONS--