Swimming falls at UH, still posts season-best times
In its longest meet of the year, the swim team posted more than 30 season-best performances at the Phill Hansel Cougar Classic Invitational, hosted by an old foe in the University of Houston. The three-day meet featured five other teams, including Louisiana State University (4-1) and last year's Conference USA champions Southern Methodist University (4-1) - both ranked top 25 of the CollegeSwimming.com/CSCAA poll. Yet the challenging match-ups failed to subdue the Owls' performances, as the team went on to finish what would be their best meet of the season.
On the first day of the meet alone, Rice had 26 season-best performances. To start the Classic, junior Shelby Bottoms, as well as freshmen Chelsea Fong, Karina Wlostowska and Lilly Marrow, swam a season-best 1:26.18 in the 200-freestyle relay.
Bottoms later went on to place fifth in the 400 IM championship (4:26.09) and sixth in the 200 IM championship, for which she qualified with her season-best time of 2:03.09 in the morning prelims.
"I have never gone a 2:03 in season before, so it was nice to see that improvement," Bottoms said. "For the most part I am swimming in line to achieve my time goals in February, and I hope to continue to improve in season performances into January."
Fong was just behind Bottoms with collegiate-best time of 2:04.90. The freshman then won the 50-free consolation finals with a 23.74, the fastest by an Owl this season, and placed fourth in the 200-freestyle championship (1:50.63).
Fong was a huge relay contributor the next day, swimming alongside Bottoms, sophomore Stephanie Wei and junior Alison Godbe. In the 800-freestyle relay, the four shattered 13 seconds off Rice's previous best time with 7:27.98, just two seconds behind nationally ranked LSU's 7:25.85. Fong, Bottoms and Wei posted another season-best relay time the next day, but this time with Wlostowska in the mix. They swam the 400-freestyle relay in 3:27.58.
The three-day meet featured individual successes as well. Godbe's career-best 4:58.92 in the 500-freestyle was her first time to swim that distance in under five minutes. Junior Alex O'Brien placed fourth in the freestyle-mile (16:58.53), her first attempt at that distance this season. Senior Kait Chura qualified for the 200-yard backstroke finals in the morning prelims with a season-best 2:02.63, while true freshman Michelle Gean won the event's consolation final with her career-best 2:02.10.
Bottoms, along with Head Coach Seth Huston, now in his ninth season with the Owls, commended the team's success, crediting much of his young talent.
"That is what we were hoping for," Huston said. "I have been very pleased with our freshmen; they've been making some big contributions thus far."
"[The freshmen] raise the level of performance for all of us, both in meets and practices, and have definitely been a major factor in our success so far this season," Bottoms said. "I love the freshmen, and I think that we are definitely closer than ever and extremely supportive of one another. I'm so happy that I have another year with this team, and I look forward to seeing how fast everyone will swim at the end of the season."
Rice wrapped up the three days with 468 points, defeating fellow C-USA team Tulane University (360) and the University of New Mexico (311). LSU won the Hansel Classic team trophy with 1,117.50 points, ahead of SMU (875.50) and Houston (562).
Senior and co-captain Karen Gerken underlined the importance of the meet.
"It's always a good chance to size up our conference competition and know that we're going to have to bring our A-game in February," Gerken said. "Swimming fast mid-season makes us confident that we are on track. Success in November just makes us want to be even more successful at Conference."
The Owls' next meet is scheduled for tomorrow at 1 p.m. in the Rice Aquatic Center. They will go head-to-head against nationally ranked powerhouse Texas A&M University, who is eighth in the nation.
"We would like to duplicate and improve upon some of our performances we had this past week," Huston said. "A&M is very good, very deep and we will need to be ready to go in order to compete against them."
"I think we have the confidence as a team to step up and show them how strong our group really is.
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