July 15, 2015
Results
TORONTO - Swimming for her native Mexico, Penn State rising senior women's swimmer Melissa Rodriguez (Chihuahua, Mexico) placed fifth in the 200-meter breaststroke at the 2015 Pan American Games Wednesday evening in the Pan Am Aquatic Centre.
Rodriguez placed fifth in both the morning preliminaries and evening finals. Her prelim time of 2:28.73 was a personal best, while she touched the wall in 2:28.87 in the finals, 4.49 seconds off the pace of the Pan Am Games record and gold medal clinching time swam by Canada's Kierra Smith, the reigning Big Ten Swimmer of the Year for Minnesota.
Rodriguez holds the Nittany Lion record in the 200-yard breaststroke, setting it at the 2014 Big Ten Championships. She has also competed in the 100 and 200 breasts and 200 medley relays at the NCAA Championships in each of her three seasons swimming for the Blue and White.
Classmate Alyson Ackman (Montreal) helped Canada earn a gold medal in the 4x100-meter freestyle relay Wednesday. Ackman swam for the team in the preliminaries, as they placed second in 3:42.83 in the initial round.
Ackman is slated to return to the pool Thursday at 11:03 a.m. for the 4x200 freestyle relay preliminaries. Monika Gonzales-Hermosillo (Mexico City), an incoming Penn State freshman, will compete for Mexico in the 400 individual medley starting at 10:05 a.m. Thursday.
Coverage of the Pan American Games is available on ESPN3.