Skip To Main Content
Skip To Main Content

Le Moyne College Athletics

SWIM: KATIE O'DONNELL EARNS ALL-AMERICA HONORS IN THREE EVENTS AT NCAA CHAMPIONSHIPS

3/12/2011 12:00:00 AM

San Antonio, Texas – Le Moyne College junior Katie O'Donnell (Delmar, N.Y./Bethlehem) earned First Team All-America honors in two events and Honorable Mention All-America accolades in a third event, while setting new school records in all three events at the 2011 NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships at the Palo Alto Natatorium.

O'Donnell, who earned Honorable Mention All-America honors in two events as a freshman and two events as a sophomore, picked up her fifth career Honorable Mention All-America accolades on Wednesday night in the 200-yard IM. Seeded 19th heading into the meet, O'Donnell advanced to the evening finals by placing 12th in a then-school record time of 2:06.60 in the morning preliminaries. Her time eclipsed her own record of 2:06.77 set at the 2009 NCAA Championships. In the finals, she finished 10th with a program-best time of 2:04.96.

On Friday, O'Donnell earned First Team All-America honors in the 100-yard backstroke with a fourth-place finish. Seeded eighth, she finished eighth in the preliminaries in 56.83 seconds to get into the finals. In the evening, she touched the wall fourth in 55.94 seconds to establish a new program record. She set the previous record of 56.61 seconds at RIT's Don Richards Invitational in December, while her placement was the best by a Dolphin (male or female) since Alison Lesher '08 won the national championship in the 200-yard butterfly in 2008.

She closed out her competition at the meet on Saturday by placing fifth in the 200-yard backstroke to earn First Team All-America accolades. The seventh seed entering the meet, O'Donnell got into the finals by placing sixth in the preliminaries with a then-school record time of 2:01.39. That time eclipsed her previous school standard of 2:02.23 set in December at the Don Richards Invitational. In the fifth event of the night, O'Donnell finished in 2:00.60 to lower the school-record time in the event.

Print Friendly Version