March 27, 2009

COLLEGE STATION, Texas – South Carolina senior Nicholas Walkotten earned Honorable Mention All-America honors with his 15th-place finish in the 100-yard butterfly finals Friday evening at the NCAA Men’s Swimming & Diving Championships. Walkotten also turned in a pair of school-record times in his two preliminary events Friday afternoon at Texas A&M University, joining fellow senior Kyle Cormier in the championship competition.

“Nick was really good this morning,” head coach McGee Moody said. “He had a couple hiccups coming off the wall tonight, but it was good. I’m proud of both Kyle and Nick in the way they’re performing. They’re representing our program the way we want to be represented. They’re showing what the future of the program can be.”

Walkotten touched the wall in 46.59 seconds in the final to grab the 15th place finish and two points in the team standings for South Carolina. It was the first All-America performance for Walkotten as a Gamecock and his third overall, adding to a pair of top-16 performances while he was a freshman at Indiana University in 2006.

“It went well, I felt pretty good this morning going into prelims,” Walkotten said. “I was just trying to go faster than 47.0 this morning and it worked out pretty well. Hopefully everything falls into place tomorrow, too.”

Earlier in the day, Walkotten grabbed the 16th and final spot in the afternoon’s preliminaries of the 100 butterfly with a time of 46.36 seconds, breaking Zsolt Gaspar’s nine-year-old school record of 46.58. It was the senior’s best time of his career by a relatively wide margin, surpassing the 47.01 he swam at the SEC Championships in February. Walkotten finished .01 seconds ahead of the 17th-place finisher, Peter Davis of California, to grab a spot in the consolation final. Walkotten was one of six swimmers from the SEC to advance to the evening session in the event, joining four competitors from Auburn and one from LSU.

The senior from Hudsonville, Mich., also lowered his own school record in the 100-yard backstroke with a time of 47.56, surpassing his time of 47.84 at the SEC Championships. He finished third in his heat and 32nd overall against a strong field; the cut-off for the consolation final was 46.76.

Cormier also competed on Friday in the 200 freestyle, touching the wall in 1:35.67 to tie for 29th place. Cormier will compete in one more event in the championship with the 100 freestyle coming up Saturday. Walkotten will also go for another All-America certificate in his final collegiate swim, the 200 butterfly.

Saturday’s preliminaries get underway at 1 p.m. (ET). Live results and live video can be obtained through aggieathletics.com.