March 20, 2012

NEWPORT NEWS, Va. - Fordham's Brienne Ryan and Richmond's Lauren Hines continued their excellent seasons this past weekend at the 2012 NCAA Women's Swimming & Diving Championship at Auburn University. Both Ryan and Hines competed in the 100-yd and 200-yd Backstroke events.

Ryan, the junior from New Windsor, N.Y., placed 20th in the 100-yd Backstroke prelims with a time of 53.10, and ultimately falling just short of qualifying for the finals. Ryan had little time to wait for her heat of the 200-yard Backstroke event at the 2012 NCAA Championship, hosted at Auburn University on Saturday. Competing in heat two of the first event of the day, Ryan won her heat in school record time, but was just edged out of the top 16 by 0.03 seconds.

Ryan recorded a time of 1:54.67, was narrowly beat out by Ohio State's Emily Creran (1:54.63) and Maryland's Virginia Glover (1:54.64) for the final two "B" final qualifying spots.

Ryan is only the third Fordham athlete, and first female athlete, ever to represent the school as an individual entry at the NCAA Swimming & Diving Championship.

After breaking her previous school record in the afternoon's 100-yd Backstroke prelims, Richmond's Lauren Hines turned in a 16th place overall finish in Friday's finals to earn honorable mention All-America honors. With her finish, she becomes the third Spider in program history to earn All-America distinction at Nationals.

Hines clocked a time of 53.20 to place 16th overall on Friday at the Tigers' James E. Martin Aquatics Center. The Roanoke, Va., product finished fourth in her prelims heat on Friday afternoon with a time of 52.59 to break her own school record in the event (52.76) previously established at the 2011 Atlantic 10 Championship.

Hines returned to the water to set her second school record in as many days with a 26th-place time of 1:55.80 in the 200 portion of the event on Saturday at the NCAA Championship in Auburn, Ala.