March 15, 2012
Thursday’s Final Results | Thursday’s Prelims Results
AUBURN, Ala. — South Carolina senior diver Courtney Forcucci earned her first All-America honor as a Gamecock with a 15th-place finish in the one-meter springboard competition on Thursday at the 2012 NCAA Women’s Swimming and Diving Championships at the James E. Martin Aquatics Center.
Forcucci posted a score of 288.65 in the finals to receive honorable mention All-America honors, becoming the 66th different woman to accomplish the feat at South Carolina. The All-America honor is the second of her career, as she finished 15th on the platform at the 2008 NCAA Championships while diving for Houston.
“This was one of the goals coming here. I’ve never been able to (earn All-America honors) at South Carolina,” Forcucci said. “It’s really great to be able to say that I’m an All-American again. This is my highest finish on the one-meter at NCAAs, so hopefully I’ll keep the ball rolling and perform well on the three-meter.”
Forcucci battled to get in the consolation final as she fell to 22nd place through three rounds in the preliminaries. However, she made a steady climb during the final three rounds and recorded a score of 54 on her final dive to finish in a tie for 12th and advance to the consolation final.
“Today was not as good as I would have liked for it to be,” Forcucci said. “But we got some points up on the board and got the nerves out, so tomorrow should be a lot better.”
In the swimming events, sophomore Rachael Schaffer was the only Gamecock to compete on Thursday as she swam in heat five of the 200-yard IM. The Baltimore, Md., native finished sixth in her heat and 38th overall with a time of 1:59.82.
The Gamecocks will have three participants at the championships on Friday. Forcucci will compete on the three-meter springboard. Schaffer is set to swim in the 400-yard IM, and sophomore Amanda Rutqvist will swim the 100-yard breaststroke. Preliminaries will begin at noon ET followed by the finals at 8 p.m. Live results are available at NCAA.com. Live video for Friday’s preliminaries will be available at AuburnTigers.com, while the finals will be streamed at WatchESPN.com.
