March 10, 2008

MeetSchedule

LANCASTER, Pa. - Franklin & Marshall junior Brittany McCabe will look for her fourth All-America honor, competing this weekend at the NCAA Division III Women's Swimming and Diving Championships. The three-day affair gets underway on Thursday at the Corwin M. Nixon Aquatic Center in Miami, Ohio. The College of Wooster is hosting this year's championship.

McCabe will compete in three events: the 100-yard and 200-yard backstrokes and the 50-yard free. This is the junior's third trip to the National Championships.

"I am thrilled for Brittany," said head coach Bob Rueppel. "Making nationals once is difficult. To do it three years in a row is quite a feat that she has worked very hard to accomplish."

McCabe is the sixth seed in the 100-yard backstroke with a qualifying time of 58:29. She'll be chasing Amherst senior Brittany Sasser, who qualified with the top time of 55.60. She is the 22nd seed in the 200-yard version of the stroke with a qualifying mark of 2:08.07. Once again, she'll chase Sasser who posted a qualifying time of 1:59.79. Sasser is the only swimmer to qualify with a time below the two-minute mark, and has nearly four seconds on the next best time. McCabe optioned into the 50- yard freestyle, and is the 46th seed in that race.

McCabe earned her third All-America honor at last year's championship placing 13th in the 100-yard backstroke with a time of 58.92. She finished in 18th place in the 100-yard butterfly at last year's championship with a 58.73 in the preliminaries. She missed the cut for the finals by .52 seconds.

"This is the first time she will compete at Nationals in the 100-yard back without swimming the fly on the same day," says head coach, Bob Rueppel. "I am excited to see what she can do going into the event full of steam."

As a freshman, McCabe placed eighth in the 100-yard backstroke and 16th in the 100-yard butterfly. In the 100 fly, she swam to a 59.39 to garner her first All-America certificate. That followed a preliminary effort in which she broke the Franklin & Marshall record of 58.78 set by Jen Gareis '92 at the 1991 National Championships. McCabe returned to the pool in the 100 backstroke and placed eighth in a time of 58.98 to pick up her second All-America honor.

McCabe will swim the 50-yard freestyle on Thursday, the 100-yard backstroke on Friday, and the 200-yard backstroke on Saturday.