Prelims: Day Three at Men's NCAAs

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COLUMBUS, Ohio – Virginia’s 400 freestyle relay team and junior Scot Robison earned spots in the consolation finals tonight as day three of the NCAA Championships continued Sunday.

Preliminaries were held in the 200 back, 100 free, 200 breast, 200 fly and 400 free relay. A timed final of the 1650 free will begin at approximately 5 p.m. this afternoon. The meet, which concludes tonight, is being held at the McCorkle Aquatic Pavilion on Ohio State’s campus.

“We have three milers in that race, so we have opportunities there,” Bernardino said. “We are a little disappointed with this morning’s performance because we really felt like this relay had an opportunity to go top-8 and we just didn’t go as fast as we needed to go.”

Live coverage of the 2010 Men’s NCAA Championships will be broadcast tonight on ESPN 360. Finals begin at 7 p.m. this evening.

Virginia’s 400 free relay team of Robison, Peter Geissinger, John Azar and Matt McLean places 10th in the preliminaries with a time of 2:53.60.

“As I told the guys this morning, we put 365 days into it and we have 12 hours to go,” Bernardino said. “We have to battle. We have to step up and be better.”

Robison will return as a consolation finalist after placing 13th overall with a time of 43.02 in the 100 free. He finished fourth in the 200 free Saturday. Geissinger was 22nd overall in the 100 free with a personal-best time of 43.46.

Azar and freshman Tom Casey each competed in the preliminaries of the 200 breast. Azar finished 27th (1:57.57) and Casey was 32nd (1:58.70). Olesen placed 34th in the 200 back with a time of 1:44.89, his fastest of the season.