Last modified: Sunday, July 11, 2004 12:44 AM EDT Brunelli comes up just short of 100-meter freestyle finals LONG BEACH, Calif. -- With the biggest race of his swimming career taking place the very next morning, Nick Brunelli went to bed early on Friday night. `` And for three straight hours, I lied there and just stared at the ceiling -- I just could not get to sleep,'' said the Mansfield native, who on Saturday morning was to compete in the 100-meter freestyle preliminaries at the U.S. Olympic trials. And, despite having a mere three hours of sleep, Brunelli performed quite well on Saturday. After securing the eight and final spot out of the preliminary round for Saturday night's semifinals -- clocking a best-ever time of 49.98 -- Brunelli's time was even better hours later. The 22-year-old Brunelli, an All-American at Arizona State, swam a personal-best time of 49.80. However, he missed out on qualifying for today's finals in his specialty event, as his best chance at making the Olympic team came to a halt. Earlier in the day, Brunelli had said that he hoped to be more relaxed during the semis. His goal was a time of 49.5 -- which he felt he could pull off if everything went right, he'd advance to the finals. While Jason Lezak sped to a top time of 48.17, the eighth and final qualifying spot was turned in by Sabir Muhammad at 49.70. `` The preliminaries went really well -- I was really happy, especially swimming the best time I had ever swam despite it being a morning swim,'' said Brunelli on Saturday morning, soon after his preliminary-round race and hours before the semifinals took place. According to Brunelli, his preliminary-round start was slow, `` which is normally my strong point.'' And, with his heart rate `` going like crazy'' near the end of the race, his finish wasn't exactly what he had hoped. Nonetheless, he was pleased with the way things turned out. On Friday night, after years of plying his trade in hopes of making it to the Olympic Games, `` it all just sunk in'' for Brunelli, who is currently in his second appearance at the trials, having competed as an 18-year-old in 2000. Brunelli is still competing at the trials. In his third event of the trials -- he also swam the 200-meter freestyle, but didn't make it out of the preliminaries -- Brunelli is set to go in the 50 freestyle, which start on Monday.