March 18, 2011

By Wes Todd
Assistant Media Relations Director

AUSTIN, Texas – South Carolina freshman Amanda Rutqvist earned her first career All-America honor on Friday as she finished 16th in the 100-yard breaststroke at the NCAA Women’s Swimming & Diving Championships. It wrapped up a solid second day for the three Gamecock student-athletes at the Texas Swimming Center.

Rutqvist swam a finals time of 1:01.04 to earn the Gamecocks their first point of the 2011 national meet. She posted a time of 1:00.50 in the afternoon’s preliminaries to qualify 13th, securing a spot in the consolation final and her first All-America certificate. The native of Gothenburg, Sweden, becomes the 65th different women’s All-American in South Carolina history and the first women’s swimmer to earn a top-16 finish since Christy Williams in 2006.

Fellow freshman Rachael Schaffer just barely missed a spot in the finals in the 400 individual medley, posting a time of 4:10.27 to finish in 17th place as the first alternate, missing the consolation final by .86 seconds. She will have one more shot at scoring for the Gamecocks in the 200 breaststroke on Saturday.

Senior diver Taryn Zack wrapped up her stellar Carolina career with a 21st-place finish in the 3-meter diving preliminaries, scoring a 295.95 on Friday afternoon.

With the one point from Rutqvist’s 16th-place finish, the Gamecocks currently stand in 40th place heading into the final day of competition. California leads with 295 points, with Georgia in second place at 274.5.

Rutqvist and Schaffer will both return for one more swim on Saturday as both will compete in the 200 breaststroke. Rutqvist is the No. 6 seed entering the event, having won the SEC title with a league-record time of 2:08.56 last month. Prelims get underway at noon and finals are set for 8 p.m., with live results available through NCAA.com.