New policy provides notivation for swim team
Head coach Seth Huston has a new policy for his swim team: If a swimmer wants to travel to away meets, she must earn her spot on the roster by showing up to practice and displaying commitment to the team. College swim meets allow each team only 18 entries. This year, Rice has 21 girls eligible to swim. Therefore, at each meet Huston must choose three girls who swim for exhibition only but cannot score points.In the past, Huston has taken the entire team to every meet because it made sense numerically. Now that he has choices available about who swims, Huston intends to use them.
The coaching staff is careful to use this tool to motivate rather than to discriminate, and assistant coach Jada Hallmark (Sid '01) explained that earning a spot does not come automatically for those who make good times.
"We want the atmosphere on this team to be that you come in and work your tail off every day, and in the end it will pay off," Hallmark said. "If you earn your spot, then you get to go. It has nothing to do with your times. If the fastest person on the team is missing practices, or is not putting in the work, or has a bad attitude, then they get left home."
As the swimmers crowded onto the pool deck on Monday afternoon, they eagerly awaited Huston's announcement about who would be on the plane this weekend to Oregon State University. Smiles all around indicated that this week, Huston is taking everyone. The Owls face Oregon State in Corvallis, Ore., in a two-day swim meet on Friday and Saturday. Oregon State, part of the Pacific 10 Conference, finished eighth in the PAC-10 Women's Swimming Championships last spring. The Owls, although not worried, have good competition to look forward to, as the Beavers boast an Olympic swimmer on their team; Saori Haruguchi qualified for the Japanese Olympic team in the 400 individual medley.
"I think [Oregon is] a pretty comparable team to us," Hallmark said. "The races should be neck and neck."
Before fall break on Oct. 10, the swim team took on the University of North Texas and Texas A&M University at College Station to open their season. Rice defeated UNT 184-109 but failed to overcome A&M, which won 161-92. Heading into the meet, the Owls were unsure where they stood in comparison with UNT, which has 16 new swimmers this season. Rice anticipated the fall to the sixth-ranked Aggies but still aimed for a good performance.
"We knew that if we were able to compete and race with them, then we were going to have some great times," Hallmark said. "Sometimes when you swim high caliber teams you don't really rise to the occasion, you get a little intimidated and bogged down. but we were right up there in every race."
Whatever jitters the freshmen may have had they used to their advantage to grab some of the team's top spots in multiple events, namely the 1000-yard freestyle, 200-yard freestyle and the 200-yard individual medley, complementing strong swims from the veterans. Hoping to make an impact in the distance events without graduated freestyle swimmer Brittany Massengale, Huston placed freshman Nicole Delaloye in the 1000-yard freestyle, where she grabbed third place. In the 200-yard freestyle, freshman Shelby Bottoms was also able to snatch third place. Bottoms also snagged second place in the 200-yard individual medley, followed closely by sophomore Kait Chura in fourth.
"The freshmen did phenomenally," senior captain Diane Gu said. "Even if they were nervous, they didn't show it."
In the 200-yard butterfly, junior Angela Wo had a breakout swim, finishing in fourth place with a time of 2:06.47. Fellow junior Pam Zelnick also raced to the front of the pack, placing second in the 100-yard freestyle. Chura and Bottoms went second and third in the 200-yard backstroke, followed closely by senior Skylar Craig in sixth.
In the 200-yard breaststroke and the 100-yard butterfly, Rice finished in the 2-3-4 positions. Scorers in the breaststroke included sophomore Ashten Ackerman, freshman Alex O'Brien and freshman Alexandra Ernst. In the butterfly, Wo, Ernst and sophomore Erin Mattson took second, third and fourth. Filling Massengale's shoes, senior Caitlin Warner swam well in the 500-yard freestyle, placing third with a time of 5:04.51. Rice closed the meet with a stellar 200-yard freestyle relay, garnering both first and third place. One relay team was made up of Zelnick, Mattson, Craig and senior Carly Miller, and the other Delaloye, Gu, junior Megan Land and sophomore Sarah Korellis.
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