Online only: Swim team earns third-place finish at C-USA Championships, Huston wins Coach of the Year Honors

By Floyd Ray     3/11/10 6:00pm

Some say the best way to improve at a sport is to focus on the positive and forget the negative. The swim team looked to do just that and forget missteps from their regular season while concentrating on earning a top finish in the Conference USA Championship Feb. 26-27. The team has come to expect nothing less than a third-place finish, as they have placed in the top three at the conference championship for the past three years.The swim team started out strong in the C-USA championships, looking for its third second-place finish in the last four years in a close battle with East Carolina University. However, the team ended up falling short in the final day of the competition, as they finished third behind champion Southern Methodist University and runner-up ECU. The University of Houston, Tulane University and Marshall University also competed in the conference championship and finished fourth, fifth, and sixth respectively.

The swim team came into the competition ready to fight as the foursome of seniors Angela Wo and Pam Zelnick,sophomore Shelby Bottoms and junior Erin Mattson blazed to a new season best in the 200-yard medley relay with a time of 1:42.27 to take second place overall, good enough for an NCAA provisional qualifying time and the second-fastest race in Rice history.

Riding on the success of the 200-yard medley, the team of Mattson, Bottoms, sophomore Alex O'Brien and freshman Stephanie Wei finished second with a season-best time of 7:22.10 and another NCAA provisional cut in the 800-yard relay.

---

---

Junior Karen Gerken also had a stellar performance in the four-day event. Gerken powered her way to a career best and NCAA provisional qualifying time of 4:52.13 winning the 500-yard freestyle in a close race.

"I knew I would swim my best if I went out at my fastest," Gerken said. "I was getting tired, but I was also getting more confident and more anxious to win. We had a lot of Rice girls, my teammates, in the event finals tonight and I think that helped. We were all racing and that made us better."

The swim team had two other swimmers in O'Brien and sophomore Nicole Delaloye to finish fourth and eighth, respectively, in the 500-yard freestyle.

In the individual 100-yard fly, Mattson won silver, finishing with a time of 56.64 while Wo finished third with her career best and the fourth best in school history with a time of 54.67. Wo also set a record in the 100-yard backstroke with a time of 56.20, the fifth-best time in Rice history.

Wo was not the only one shattering school records, as Zelnick finished with a time of 1:03.32 in the prelims for the 100-yard breaststroke in the third-best time in Rice history as well as the fastest in more than nine years. O'Brien led a 1-2-3 finish in the 1,650-yard freestyle in the final day of competition with a time of 16.43.95, setting the fourth-fastest mark in school history. She was followed by freshman Danielle Spence andGerken.

Overall, the swim team finished with five of the top ten spots in the event, with Delaloye and sophomore Alison Godbe finishing eighth and ninth, respectively. Junior Kait Chura became only the third swimmer in school history to break the two-minute mark in the 200-yard backstroke and took silver in the event. The swim team had record setting performance in the four day event, making Head Coach Seth Huston proud.

"We held a tight lead for second place throughout the competition until the final day," Huston said. "Not finishing in second place was a little disappointing, but we had so many girls finish with career-, season-, and school-best records in the competition, which shows to me that the training and practices leading up to this day paid off. I'm very proud of the team's overall performance."

The swimmers were not the only ones who found success at the C-USA Championship: Huston was named Conference USA Swim Coach of the Year. It was Huston's first coach of the year award in his eight seasons as the swim team's head coach.

Huston owes all of his success to the heart of the swimmers on the swim team.

"Being named coach of the year is a great honor for me," Huston said. "I expected great things from this team from the beginning of the season, and I knew it would take hard work and dedication for us to achieve the goals that I set for the team."

As the swim team prepares for the NCAA championship which begins next Thursday, the success of the Conference USA championship and Huston's recent award will provide the motivation to end the season on a solid note.

---