Ball State University Athletics
Women's S&D Places Two On Academic All-MAC Squad
April 12, 2011 | Women's Swimming and Diving
MUNCIE, Ind. - - Ball State women's swimming and diving senior butterfly specialist Maria Gramelspacher (Jasper, Ind./Jasper H.S.) and junior diver Christina Riordan (Homewood, Ill./Homewood Flossmoor H.S.) have been named to the Academic All-Mid-American Conference squad as announced today by the league office.
Gramelspacher, a physical education major with a 3.96 grade-point average, earns the award for the second straight season after a solid performance at the 2010-11 MAC Championships. She opened the four-day meet by swimming the third leg for the 200 medley relay which placed sixth with a school-record time of 1:43.19.
On the second day of competition, Gramelspacher placed 14th in the 100 butterfly with a time of 56.35 in her finals heat. Earlier in the day, her time of 55.70 in the prelims went down as the second-best individual time in program history.
Gramelspacher closed out her final MAC Championship meet with a sixth-place finish in the 200 butterfly, posting the second-best individual time in program history at 2:01.52. During the course of the season, she also earned her first career MAC Swimmer of the Week award on Nov. 14.
Riordan, a pre-med/biology major with a 3.45 GPA, earned Academic All-MAC accolades for the first time in her career after being an NCAA Zone Diving Qualifier on both the one-meter and three-meter boards.
The highlight of Riordan's season came Jan. 29, when she turned in a school-record three-meter score of 312.00 at Buffalo, which had her ranked third in the conference entering the MAC Championships. Unfortunately, she suffered a season-ending injury just prior to the league meet.
In addition to her school-record effort on the three-meter board, Riordan added a season-best one-meter score of 268.8 at the Doug Coers Invitational.
Overall, a total of 27 student-athletes were named to the 2010-11 Academic All-MAC Team for women's swimming and diving. To earn Academic All-MAC honors, a student-athlete must have at least a 3.20 cumulative GPA and have participated in at least 50% of the contests for that particular sport. First-year students and junior college transfers in their first year of residence are not eligible for the award.
