Massengale ends illustrious career with All-America honors

By Tracy Dansker     3/27/08 7:00pm

Walking out onto the pool deck at the McCorkle Aquatic Pavilion at Ohio State University, without any of her swimming teammates to stand beside her, senior Brittany Massengale was determined to not be intimidated by the bigger squads and their visible fan support. But as Rice's sole NCAA qualifier, Massengale had reason to be nervous.Fortunately for Massengale, one of the most decorated swimmers in Rice history, the butterflies in her stomach could not slow her down on collegiate swimming's biggest stage. After placing 32nd in the 200-yard freestyle preliminaries, she qualified for the championship finals in the 1650 and 500 freestyle, where she placed 12th and 13th, respectively. Her two finishes in the finals were worth a cumulative score of nine points, which put Rice in a tie for 39th place. Massengale is the first Owl to score in two individual events at the national meet since Mandy Mularz (Wiess '04) accomplished this feat at the NCAA Championships in 2002.

"This was the fastest NCAA Championship there ever was, so to score at that meet is a pretty big deal," head coach Seth Huston said. "Any other year those times probably would have moved her up a few spots, but this wasn't any other year, and she probably rose to the occasion as well."

Not only did Massengale stifle her nervousness, she also managed to break two school records that she had previously set. Massengale first broke the 500 freestyle record with a time of 4 minutes, 42.13 seconds. Her swim earned her the top seed in the consolation finals and she finished 0.2 seconds from qualifying for the championship final.

---

---

Later in the competition, Massengale set another school record in the 1650 freestyle by shattering her own time by more than five seconds to finish in 16:12.12. Although she did not compete in the 1000 freestyle, her split in the 1650 freestyle of 9:47.86 was the best in Rice's history. Her top-16 finish in the 500 freestyle also earned her All-American honors.

"The only goal that I hadn't really reached since I had been here in the last four years was making All-America," Massengale said. "You don't want to walk away from your career having just one un-reached goal."

Massengale will continue training through at least June, when she will compete in the Olympic Trials in both the 400 and 800 freestyle events. Huston said he is confident that as long as she stays healthy - Massengale has undergone two shoulder surgeries in the last four years - she will only continue to get better now that she has found the confidence to pair with her remarkable speed.

"If I used one word to describe her, it would be 'perseverance,'" Huston said. "There is no straight line to the top and . hers has dipped up and down due to a lot of factors outside of her control. She just keeps battling away.

---