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February 8, 2008 > Sports > Swimmers prep for C-USA meet with easy win

Swimmers prep for C-USA meet with easy win

By Tracy Dansker | Thresher staff

At a meeting before the start of the swim team’s meet last Friday against the University of New Orleans, head coach Seth Huston made an enticing offer. Looking to motivate the Owls against a weaker opponent, Huston promised to give the team an extra day off from practice if they accumulated 13 season-best times during the meet.

“We presented the team with some challenges [to try] to get season best times,” he said.

Three days after their 131-60 thrashing of the Privateers, the Owls had their day off.

Rice will now spend the next three weeks resting and training for the Conference USA Championships, which will run Feb. 27 through March 1 at the University of Houston’s Natatorium. Last year the Owls secured second place but finished nearly 300 points behind conference champion Southern Methodist University. After falling to the 14th-ranked Mustangs on the road last month, the Owls hope to overtake them this time around.

However, Rice will still have to contend with Eastern Carolina University and UH, which finished third and fourth, respectively, at the conference title meet last year.

“[UH] was one of our biggest competitors last year and the year before, but we beat them [this year] so they’re really not much of a worry,” Kirchhoff, a co-captain, said. “It’s going to be SMU and ECU, [which] was really close to us last year.”

In order to earn a first- or second-place finish, Rice will need to obtain a few more season-best times, much like last Friday. Ten swimmers in eight different events notched 13 season-best times as the Owls won all but one event against New Orleans. These swimmers include juniors Caitlin Warner, Skylar Craig and Kirchhoff, sophomores Angela Wo, Allyson Lemay and Justine Lin and freshmen Sarah Korellis, Ashten Ackerman, Kait Chura and Karen Gerken. Wo also set a personal-best time of 58.33 seconds in the 100-yard backstroke.

“We’re excited,” Hallmark said. “Things look good. This meet […] started the ball rolling and got the momentum going for the next three weeks.”

Other impressive swims that scored crucial points for Rice included senior Brittany Massengale’s first-place finishes in the 200- and 500-freestyle. Following her lead in the 200, junior Carly Miller and sophomore Pam Zelnick took second and third place, respectively. Massengale did not make an appearance in the 1,000-freestyle, but the duo of Warner and Gerken managed to land the top two spots for the Owls. The 50-freestyle was dominated by junior Diane Gu and sophomore Megan Land, who also took the top two spots in the event. In the 100-freestyle, Gu was barely edged out by Zelnick, where the Owls went one-two as well. Rice then dominated the relays, sweeping every one.

Kirchhoff said the team’s success derived from the team-first mentality.

“If somebody doesn’t do as well as they want to then it’s the next person’s responsibility to get up and set the tone,” Kirchhoff said. “It’s not individual races, you swim every individual race as a team.”

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