Swimming downs Houston

By Tracy Dansker     2/5/09 6:00pm

When you face your biggest rival three times during the dual-meet season, the series can turn out four different ways. It can be entirely disheartening because your team repeatedly falls short; ego-boosting because you smash your opponent mercilessly at each meeting; disastrous if your team starts strong and ends in a slump; or amazingly rewarding because your team perseveres until the tables are turned in your favor. It turns out that the final option works best for the swim team. Last weekend, the Owls met the University of Houston for the third time this season. The Cougars took both of the previous contests fairly handily, but this time the Owls had the upper hand, recording 178 points to UH's 169. Along the way, Rice also beat the University of New Orleans 263.5-65.5 and lost to Lousiana State University 246-95.

Head coach Seth Huston said it was gratifying to finally get a win over the Cougars.

"In the fall, [UH] got us both times we swam [against] them, so it was nice to return the favor," Huston said. "We ended up with a moderately comfortable win."

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On the first day of competition, performances across the squad were inconsistent. Sophomores Ashten Ackerman and Erin Mattson and freshmen Nicole Delaloye and Alison Godbe all secured third place finishes in their respective events. Notably, Ackerman set the best time by an Owl in the past four years in the 200-yard breaststroke.

Later on the same day, Godbe grabbed third place and a school-best time in the 200-yard individual medley, while Mattson secured her third place finish in the 100-yard butterfly with a time of 57.01. Delaloye finished third in the 1000-yard freestyle, while senior Caitlin Warner came in right behind her with a season-best time of 10:18.85.

Huston said he felt the team's performance showed their conditioning is on track for the conference meet.

"Friday we were definitely off ... and then Saturday we came back and almost everyone swam well," Huston said. "If you're [swimming] a lifetime-best time a month before our peak performance meet, that's a really good sign because they're not in a peak condition right now."

Warner returned on Saturday and hammered home the first of many nails in UH's coffin, winning the 500-yard freestyle with a career best time of 4:56.54. Delaloye followed close behind, taking third place. Freshman Shelby Bottoms took second place with a season-best time in the 400-yard individual medley, while junior Pam Zelnick snagged third place in the 100-yard breaststroke with a season-best time of 1:05.37. Mattson also came back in the 200-yard butterfly and took second place. Senior Natalie Kirchoff turned in lifetime-best 2:06.62 - her first personal record since her freshman year.

"It had been almost two and a half years since I had gotten a [personal record] in anything," Kirchoff said. "I looked up and thought my time was probably wrong, like the clock was wrong, and I immediately broke into tears of joy and gratitude."

Possibly the most important event of the two days, the 200-freestyle relay, was the last event of the entire two day meet. Rice trailed the Cougars by five points as the girls lined up behind the starting blocks. The A-team of Zelnick and seniors Skylar Craig, Diane Gu and Carlyann Miller had a solid performance, taking second place in 1:34.49. What made the key difference, however, was the impressive finish by the Owls' B-team of Delaloye, Bottoms and juniors Angela Wo and Megan Land. Bottoms, the relay's anchor, came from behind to secure the win over Houston's A-team, giving the Owls enough overall points to beat Houston and bring their record in dual meets to 6-7. They next compete against Incarnate Word University on Feb. 7 in San Antonio.

"[Incarnate Word] is a Division II school so what we'll probably do is swim a lot of alternate events, some events most of the team hasn't swum this year," Huston said. "[We'll] just give them a chance to get up and race, but not necessarily to focus on their best events.

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