Denison entered the final night of the 2010 NCAA Division III Swimming & Diving Championship trailing first place Emory by only 25.5 points.  Despite eight All-America swims for the Big Red on Saturday, Emory's depth proved to be too much to overcome.  When the dust settled, Denison had earned the program's fifth national runner-up finish by totaling 452 points.  Emory captured the national championship with 568.5 points.

As impressive as the Big Red were all weekend, the Eagles slammed the door thanks to strong performances in each of the night's final five events.  In the 1650 freestyle, Denison's Hilary Callen (Oswego, N.Y./Oswego) placed fourth in 16:54.69, however, the Eagles turned in four, top-15 finishes to rack up 44 points in the event.

That trend continued in the 100 freestyle where Denison's Marit Wangstad (Wayzata, Minn./The Blake School) placed eighth in 51.49 and Alyssa Swanson (Aurora, Colo./Regis Jesuit) won the consolation heat with a time of 51.18.  DU's 20 points in the event still could not match Emory's 34 points, and four, top-12 finishes.

One event where the Big Red did shine on Saturday night was the 200 backstroke where Emily Schroeder (Fishers, Ind./Hamilton Southeastern) and Olivia Zaleski (Corry, Pa./Corry Area) finished 2-3, respectively in the final standings.  Schroeder, who placed sixth in the event last year, touched in 2:00.35 breaking her own school record.  Zaleski, who was swimming the event at nationals for the first time in her storied career, was right behind in 2:01.41.  In the consolation heat, Lindsay Zeberlein (Highlands Ranch, Colo./Mountain Vista) placed 16th in 2:05.95.

The 200 breaststroke saw junior Ksenia Golovkina (Newton, Mass./Newton South) place 14th in 2:21.91 while the 400 freestyle relay team of Zaleski, Wangstad, Callen and Swanson would touch in second place in 3:24.84 to cap off the championship.

Over the course of the four-day meet, Denison racked up four national event championships and 18 top-8 performances.  Zaleski closed out her career a perfect 28 for 28 in All-America swims at nationals.  She logged those 28 swims in nine different events with eight of those events resulting in national championships.  She is the only swimmer in the history of the DU women's program to accomplish this feat. Her classmate, Kate Rich (McMurray, Pa./Peters Twp.), added four All-America citations to her resume, leaving her with 15 in her three trips to nationals.

As stated earlier, this marks Denison's fifth national runner-up trophy.  Their previous four runner-up finishes came in 1998, 1999, 2000 and 2002.  That streak was interrupted in 2001 by the program's first national championship.