Swimming succeeds at Cornhusker Invitational
The swim team proved head coach Seth Huston right: They showed that they can have unbeatable depth. While they have struggled to win dual meets in the past few months, the Owls had no trouble destroying their competition at the Cornhusker Invitational hosted by the University of Nebraska Nov. 20-23. This meet organization was similar to the way the Conference USA Championships will run in February. In the morning the team swam in preliminaries and those with fast enough times made it to the finals the same evening, where they had an opportunity to score points. At the end of each day, Rice came out on top. After competing in 21 events over four days, Rice won the entire meet with 1,200 points, 121 points ahead of runner-up North Texas.
Huston saw the meet as a good test of the team's competitive endurance.
"In a way it was like a rehearsal that could potentially be more taxing than [the] conference [championships]," Huston said. "[The team] got a feel for having to come back and get up and go every day; swim fast in the morning to get in and having to set themselves up in preliminaries for a good finals positioning."
The Owls began day one of competition by grabbing first place in the 400-yard freestyle relay with a season-best time of 3:29.78. Those swimming included junior Pam Zelnick, senior Skylar Craig, freshman Shelby Bottoms and senior Carlyann Miller. The only other event held that day was the mile swim, in which Rice took six of the top 20 scoring spots. In the top 10 were freshman Nicole Delaloye in fourth and senior Caitlin Warner in sixth.
Rice returned on day two with just as much effort in the next five events, three of which they won. Zelnick, Craig, senior Diane Gu, and Miller finished in first place in the 200-yard freestyle relay with a season best time of 1:35.19. Zelnick and Miller tallied a total of 43.5 points by placing 1-2 in the race 50-yard freestyle. Delaloye broke the five minute mark for the first time at the collegiate level when she snatched second place in the 500-yard freestyle, followed by teammates Warner in fifth, freshman Alex O'Brien in seventh, and sophomore Sarah Korellis in thirteenth. Bottoms won her first collegiate event when she swept the competition in the 200-yard individual medley. Junior Angela Wo, Zelnick, sophomore Erin Mattson, and Miller finished the day by taking third in the 400-yard medley relay.
The whole team contributed to the Rice win, Huston said.
"Across the board everybody was swimming their best times of the season, which again, is what we were pointing towards," Huston said.
Day three started off with a bang as Wo, Miller, Craig and Zelnick out-touched their opponents to finish first in the 200-yard medley relay with a season best time of 1:45.25. Rice dominated the next two events: Bottoms won her second collegiate event when she grabbed first place in the 400-yard individual medley supported by teammates Ackerman in second, O'Brien in fourth, sophomore Kait Chura in sixth and fellow freshman Louise Gliga in eighth. Wo then won the 100-yard butterfly despite being seeded last after the preliminaries. Craig and Mattson came in fourth and fifth in the 100- yard butterfly. Rice also had impressive finishes in the 200-yard freestyle and 100-yard backstroke, where the team was able to take four of the top 10 spots in freestyle and four of the top 20 spots in backstroke. Delaloye, Miller, Bottoms and Warner wrapped up the day by taking second place in the 800-yard freestyle relay.
Bottoms earned Conference USA Swimmer of the Week recognition for her performance
"[Bottoms] handled everybody in those events," Huston said. "She dominated those two races."
Rice's dominance continued on day four. Craig took second in the 200-yard backstroke, followed by Chura in fourth, junior Justine Lin in 11th, and Delaloye in 13th. In the 100-yard freestyle Zelnick edged out the competition to take first place. Behind her were teammates Miller in third, Bottoms in 10th, and freshman Alison Godbe in 17th. The underclassmen led the charge in the 200-yard breaststroke, where Ackerman took second, O'Brien took fifth, freshman Alexandra Ernst took 12th,and Godbe finished 20th. The Owls last swim of the meet was the 200-yard butterfly. Gliga won her first collegiate event with a career best time of 2:03.93. Mattson came in fourth, followed by Ackerman who swam back to back events in sixth.
The Owls travel to Puerto Rico for their winter training trip this December. While there they will swim against Macalester College and then return home to face Southern Methodist University on January 16th. This will be their one home meet of the season and the last meet at the current pool.
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