March 16, 2012

AUBURN, Ala. — South Carolina senior diver Courtney Forcucci placed fifth in the three-meter springboard preliminaries with a score of 336.85 on Friday afternoon at the NCAA Women’s Swimming and Diving Championships at the James E. Martin Aquatics Center.

With the top-eight finish, Forcucci advances to tonight’s championship finals, which begin with swimming events at 8 ET. Forcucci earns her second All-America honor as a Gamecock and the third of her career. She becomes ninth South Carolina diver to earn two All-America honors at one national championship.

The Gamecocks had two swimmers compete earlier on Friday. For the second straight year, sophomore Rachael Schaffer narrowly missed earning her first All-America honor in the 400-yard IM. Schaffer swam a 4:10.29 to finish 17th overall in the preliminaries, missing out on the consolation finals by .50 seconds. She finished 17th at last year’s championships, coming up .89 seconds short of making the finals.

Sophomore Amanda Rutqvist swam in the 100-yard breaststroke competition for Carolina, finishing 33rd overall with a time of 1:01.30.

A full recap will be posted after tonight’s diving finals.