Despite the fact that the NIU men’s swimming and diving squad lost three dual meets, coach Dave Clark was pleased with what he saw.

No, Clark’s not mad at his crew, he’s simply keeping his eye on the stopwatch rather than the scoreboard. On the scoreboard, NIU lost a 152-108 decision to the University of Wisconsin; lost a 178-92 meet to the University of Minnesota and was beaten 183-96 by Iowa State University.

All scores were part of Friday and Saturday’s Wisconsin Quadrangular meet which saw the Badgers edge Minnesota 150-129 and down Iowa State 152-109.

“We were swimming against what could be two of the top 10 teams in the country and one of the better teams from the Big Eight. The bottom line is we swam pretty well. We certainly weren’t in awe of them, and the fact that we were even invited to take part in the meet is a measure of recognition,” Clark explained.

“We swam timewise about where we were at last January, so we’ve definitely improved. We just didn’t have our opponents’ depth.”