Chattanooga swimmers Stephanie Napier and Sean Ryan had impressively strong showings Saturday in the U.S. Olympic trials at the Qwest Center in Omaha, Neb.

Napier made the women’s 50-meter freestyle semifinals with a 16th-place time of 25.62 seconds in the morning preliminaries and wound up 13th with a 25.52. The 20-year-old Baylor Swim Club member now at the University of Florida was seeded 35th for the event with a qualifying time of 25.96.

Ryan, the McCallie School junior and Scenic City Aquatic Club swimmer who doesn’t turn 16 until September, was 20th in the men’s 1500 freestyle prelims by cutting a whopping 16 seconds off his qualifying time. He was seeded 72nd with a 15:52, according to McCallie coach Stan Corcoran, who is with him in Omaha, but swam his heat in 15:35.99.

“He’s the fastest 15-year-old in the country in the mile — I think the fastest high school swimmer,” Corcoran said.

Ryan’s performance Saturday didn’t get him in the trials semifinals but got him another week away from home.

USA Swimming officials immediately lined him up for next week’s World Youth Championships in Monterrey, Mexico, where he will perform in both the 800 and 1500 frees.

“Sean will go straight from here to Mexico,” Corcoran said. “He’ll swim Thursday and Saturday there.”

Additionally, Ryan now is assured of making the U.S. national junior team for a trip either to Guam in January or to Vancouver in May. Earlier this week he qualified for his fourth event in the U.S. Open at the end of this month in Minneapolis. He’s doing the 400 free and a 6.2-mile open-water swim as well as the 800 and 1500 frees there.

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