March 25, 2011
MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. - The Penn State 200 medley relay earned All-America honors for its 10th place finish at the NCAA Men's Swimming & Diving Championships on Friday at the University of Minnesota Aquatic Center.
The relay of Graham Risley (Riverside, Ill.), Mitch Scherer (Pottstown, Pa.), Sean Grier (Hummelstown, Pa.) and Brian Alden (Lansdale, Pa.) set a new school record in the preliminaries with a ninth-place time of 1:25.74. The quartet was just .04 off of qualifying for the A Final. Penn State finished just .12 behind UNLV for ninth place in the B Final in a time of 1:26.31. The new school record eclipses the 1:26.59 set in 2009. The All-America honor is the first since 2009 for the Nittany Lions
Junior Scott Marino (Scotch Plains, N.J.) earned 23rd in the 400 IM with a time of 3:48.27. Grier swam a time of 47.45 (34th) in the 100 fly before Alden posted a 1:37.46, good for 40th in the 200 free. Scherer was 30th in the 100 breast (54.37), while Risley was 33rd in the 100 back (47.98) followed by Grier (35th) in a time of 48.13.
Penn State returns to the University of Minnesota Aquatic Center on Saturday when preliminaries kick off at 1:00 p.m. ET. The finals will take place at 7:00 p.m. with ESPN3.com showing live video of the night session.
--NITTANY LIONS--