May 8, 2008

AUBURN - Auburn senior swimmers Kara Denby and Kristen Hastrup have been named by the NCAA as two of 29 female student-athletes who participated in Division I, II or III winter sports to receive a $7,500 postgraduate scholarship award from the NCAA. Both were nominated as members of the Auburn swimming and diving team.

To qualify for an NCAA postgraduate scholarship, a student-athlete must have an overall grade-point average of 3.200 (on a 4.000 scale) or its equivalent and must have performed with distinction as a member of the varsity team in the sport in which the student-athlete was nominated. The student-athlete also must intend to continue academic work beyond the baccalaureate degree as a full-time or part-time graduate student.

With Denby and Hastrup both earning the award, Auburn was one of 11 universities to have multiple scholarship recipients. It also marks the second year in a row for a member of the swimming and diving team to earn one of the awards as diver Steven Segerlin won it last year.

Denby, a native of Simi Valley, Calif., holds a 3.94 grade-point average while majoring in zoology and pre-med. Named an academic All-American by ESPN The Magazine and the College Swim Coaches Association of America, she is a four-time SEC Academic Honor Roll honoree and a four-time Top Tiger.

A member of the Phi Eta Sigma, Tri Beta and Phi Kappa Phi honor societies, she is also a two-time SEC Swimming and Diving Female Scholar-Athlete of the Year.

In the pool, Denby swam on two NCAA Champion and three SEC Champion teams, tallying 24 All-America honors. She is a six-time SEC Individual Champion and a gold-medal winner on two United States National Teams. Recently, she swam on the U.S. 400m medley relay team at the FINA World Short Course Championships that set a new World Record.

Denby holds the Auburn record in the 100 freestyle and swam on the Auburn-record holding 200 and 400 free relay teams. She also ranks second all-time at Auburn in the 50 free and 100 breast.

Hastrup, a senior from Fresno, Calif., has earned a 4.00 grade point average, majoring in Biomedical Sciences. She is a two-time member of the SEC Academic Honor Roll and has earned Auburn University Academic Top Tiger honors four times. She earned first-team ESPN The Magazine Academic All-America honors and is a CSCAA Academic All-American.

Hastrup is a member of the Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society, the Omicron Delta Kappa Honor Society, the Phi Eta Sigma Honor Society, the National Society of Collegiate Scholars and is an associate member of Alpha Epsilon Delta (a pre-health professional society).

Athletically, Hastrup is a three-time All-American and a member of three SEC Championship teams and two NCAA championship squads. She was the 200 butterfly champion at the 2007 SEC Championships and also holds the Auburn record in that event. She won the Stanley Louis Sugar Memorial Award as an outstanding scholar-athlete at Auburn. For the last two seasons, she has competed at the U.S. Senior Nationals, winning the B final in 2006 and placing second in the C final in 2007.

Earlier this year, Hastrup was announced as the H. Boyd McWhorter Scholar-Athlete of the Year, the highest academic honor a student-athlete can receive from the SEC. She will formally be presented with the award and a $10,000 postgraduate scholarship on May 29 at the league's spring meetings in Deston, Fla.