“When it’s that close, you have no idea until you touch the wall, and you get your goggles off and look up at the number next to your name.”

During last year’s NCAA Swimming and Diving National Championships, senior Michael Lagieski was the top seed, and he raced a career-best 53.70 in the 100-yard breaststroke. But, when he looked up at the time board, the number next to his name was two—he got beat by three hundredths of a second.

The pain was magnified threefold. A day earlier, Lagieski narrowly missed a title in the men’s 400-yard medley relay when, despite swimming the best time in the final heat, Washington University was disqualified for jumping a relay exchange by one-hundredth of a second. Then, on the last day of the meet, he finished one 10th of a second out of first place in the 200-yard breaststroke.

When all was said and done, he missed out on three national titles by less than a combined .8 seconds.

Lagieski announced himself as a major force in Division III swimming three years ago when, as a freshman in 2014, he captured a national championship in the 100-yard breaststroke.

“I came in at the beginning of the season,” he said, “and I sat down with Brad [Shively], our coach, and I told him I wanted to win that 100-yard breaststroke title.” With a smile, he added, “Looking back, it was probably a little bit of a stretch.”

Stretch or not, everything came together for Lagieski in the 100-yard breaststroke during the end of his freshman season. He easily won the conference championship, and when it came time for the national championships, he entered the final heat as the second seed. He ended up winning by over a 10th of a second.

“I think it’s probably one of the best races I ever swam,” Lagieski said. “I was pretty shocked to turn around and see the ‘1’ next to my name.”

Lagieski even exceeded his own ambition. His time of 54.10 was a meet record.

Lagieski’s sophomore season could not reach the heights of his freshman campaign. A combination of an illness before the midseason meet and an ankle injury prior to the conferences interrupted his regular cycle of rest and recovery going into nationals.

His real obstacle, however, was an explosive breakout year from Emory University’s Andrew Wilson. Wilson finished second during Lagieski’s title race in 2014, but over the course of the next season, Wilson set national records both in the 100-yard breaststroke, 200-yard breaststroke and the 200-yard individual medley. In the NCAA finals that year, Wilson shattered Lagieski’s meet record by nearly two seconds.

Last year, the window opened back up for Lagieski. Wilson took the year off from school to train full time in an attempt to qualify for the United States Olympic team.

“I thought ‘This is my year. If I want to go back and win this thing, this is probably when it’s going to happen,’” he said.

And for the most part, Lagieski took advantage of the opportunity. He swam the top Division III time in the 100-yard breaststroke during the regular season and won the event handedly at the conference meet.

Ultimately, however, Lagieski came out of last year’s NCAA championships emptyhanded in his signature event, when Kyle Walthall from York College of Pennsylvania had a career day of his own. But despite that disappointment, Lagieski had one more aspiration, before hanging up his goggles for the season.

Lagieski wanted to qualify for the U.S. Olympic trials, the competition which funneled into Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

The day after nationals last year, Lagieski tried to swim a 100-meter breaststroke time that would qualify him for the U.S. Olympic trials. He came short by about two-tenths of a second.

“I had to make a decision: Do I just give up on it, or do I train, by myself, and try to get this thing over the summer?” Lagieski said.

Lagieski chose the latter. While most of the swim team took time off to rest and recover after their season ended, Lagieski went to back to the pool and began training for one more shot at qualifying for the trials. Lagieski calls this process, going into practices by himself, during finals, without any teammates, “one of the toughest things I’ve ever done.”

International and Olympic races are swam in 50-meter lengths, while the American school standard is 25-yards. When rhythm and timing are crucial, such a seemingly semantic difference looms large.

Lagieski took another shot at qualifying once back home in Wisconsin. With both his club coach from high school and Shively in attendance, Lagieski finally swam a time that qualified him for the trials, sneaking in two-tenths of a second below the cut.

“That was probably the most that I’ve celebrated in the water, since I won that national title,” he said.

The trials themselves, held at the CenturyLink Center in Omaha, Neb., were an opportunity for Lagieski to swim at the highest level and to interact with the best swimmers the United States has to offer.

“I walk in, and as I walk past the massage tables, there’s [Michael] Phelps,” he recalled.

Equally important for Lagieski was the experience of swimming in the pressure cooker of a filled arena.

“Being able to have that experience of stepping up to the blocks in such a high pressure, high intensity environment definitely helps me going into this champion season,” he said.

As a senior, Lagieski has one last shot at a national title. The only problem is that Wilson is back at Emory and already putting up the kind of times that shattered records two years ago. Lagieski, despite being a distant two in the 100-yard breaststroke, remains optimistic about his all-around performance, in which his NCAA finishes have steadily improved every year. Though he came just short of the 100-yard title in 2016, his third-place finish in the 200-yard and eighth in the medley was the most comprehensive set of results of his career. Lagieski actually scored more team points at nationals in his junior season than he did when he won the championship his rookie year.

With that in mind, Lagieski has set his sights on a more team-oriented goal. As much as he would like to get back on top of the individual podium in his senior season, he said that it is just as important to him that he swims well in all of his events and scores as many team points as possible.

“Going into those last nationals,” Lagieski said, “I’m just focused on being better than I was the last time … and putting as many points on the board as I can for Wash. U. swimming.”