BOWLING GREEN, Ky. - Western Kentucky University senior Claire Donahue finished second in the nation in the 100-yard butterfly event Friday night at the 2011 NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships at the Lee and Joe Jamail Texas Swimming Center in Austin, Texas.
Donahue finished in a school-record 51.68 seconds, behind only Cal-Berkeley's Amanda Sims who posted a time of 50.49. The mark also represented a personal best for Donahue.
"Just for her to she that her hard work paid off this year, I think is just very special," WKU coach Bruce Marchionda said. "And for her to represent Western Kentucky at this level of a meet, she obviously just did the program and the university very proud.
"Tomorrow is one more event and we are looking to be able to come back and score and move up in the team standings. I could not have asked for more than what she did tonight. She was aggressive, she went after it and she was able to hold on for second and put herself in some very elite company."
The second-place finish improves on her fourth-place finish in the same event at last year's NCAA championships and is the highest individual finish for a swimmer in WKU program history.
"It is very exciting in my last collegiate meet, in my best event, to just do that well," Donahue said. "[The NCAA meet] is supposedly the fastest swim meet in the world, so it's cool to place that high at such a prestigious event, with it being my senior year."
The Johnson City, Tenn., native next competes Saturday in the 200y butterfly event, where she is ranked 36th nationally with a time of 1:57.77.
Through 13 events at the NCAA Championships, WKU is 26th in the team standings with 17 points.
Preliminary heats are set to begin at 11 a.m. CST followed by finals at 7 p.m. Live streamed video will be made available for Friday and Saturday sessions via ESPN3.
