C-USA Swimming and Diving Champs this Weekend

HOUSTON - After a lot of hours of preparation and miles of swim practice logged over the past year, Rice competes for the Conference USA title in women's swimming at the 2011 C-USA Championships across town at the University of Houston Recreation Center Natatorium this Wednesday through Saturday, Feb. 23-26. The 21-event championship meet begins at 6 pm Wednesday with two relays - the 200-yard medley and 800-yard freestyle.

The championship kicks into high gear on Thursday morning. Preliminaries for the swimming events begin at 10 am Thursday through Saturday. The finals for each day's swimming and diving events are at 6 pm. C-USA students with ID may get into the meet free of charge. Admission prices for the event are: $5 for single-session tickets for youths (or a youth's full-session pass for $10); and $10 for adults per session (a full-session pass for adults is $25). Tickets are available at the UH natatorium an hour before the start of that day's session.

The Owls had another sound-and-solid season under head coach Seth Huston, now in his ninth year at the helm of the Rice program. Coach Huston is looking forward to the challenging task ahead. Where some may be looking at the current C-USA league-leaders for each event, Huston has his eye on the bigger picture.

"The conference has improved a lot and is much deeper then just a couple of years ago," coach Huston said. "Earning our way into event finals will be a key to our team finish. We are not placed very well in our pre-conference rankings, but we traditionally have made some big gains and swim our season-best times at the CUSA Championships. I am very confident that we will be moving up and scoring more points then the rankings would project. This is what we prepare for as a team all season. 

"We love to have our conference championships held at U.H.," Huston added. "We are very familiar and comfortable with the facility. I think cutting out the travel time and keeping our surroundings the same - where the girls get to stay at home in their respective Colleges - is good for our team. When we swim close to home we typically swim very well.

No doubt about it, the conference meet is an emotional time for the seniors. Rice has had the tremendous good fortune of having five standout seniors elevate the program the last four (and in one case five) years. Seniors Erin Mattson and Karen Gerken have won individual C-USA Championships in their events. Fellow seniors Ashten Ackerman, Kait Chura and Sarah Korellis have scored for the team at conference and set a high standard in the pool and in the classroom. That veteran group is brining along the Owls' talented freshman class, who is competing in their first C-USA Championship.

Thanks to the seniors, Huston thinks it's been a good mix. The Rice rookies are ready. Up-and-down the roster the team has been looking pretty fast.

"I think our freshmen get it," Huston said confidently, "that it's a big meet this week. They have been pretty big contributors to the team all year. Several of them are pretty seasoned veterans of championship swimming so they know the routine and importance of swimming fast in prelims and racing in finals.

"We have been a little faster in-season then in years past," Huston concluded. "We have had to step-up in a couple of our dual meets, and we have had a number of season-best performances popping up in the last few weeks -- which is where we like to be at this time of the year."

2011 C-USA Swimming & Diving Championship Schedule
WED., FEBRUARY 23
Diving Preliminaries - 3 pm
1-Meter Diving (Men)

Finals - 6 pm200-Yard Medley Relay
1-Meter Diving (Men)
800-Yard Freestyle Relay

THUR., FEBRUARY 24
Preliminaries - 10 am500-Yard Freestyle
200-Yard Individual Medley
50-Yard Freestyle
Diving Preliminaries - 1 pm
3-Meter (women)

Finals - 6 pm500-Yard Freestyle
200-Yard Individual Medley
50-Yard Freestyle
3-Meter Diving (Women)
400-Yard Medley Relay

FRI., FEBRUARY 25
Preliminaries - 10 am400-Yard Individual Medley
100-Yard Butterfly
200-Yard Freestyle
100-Yard Breaststroke
100-Yard Backstroke
Diving Preliminaries - 1 pm
3-Meter (Men)
1-Meter (Women)

Finals - 6 pm200-Yard Freestyle Relay
1-Meter Diving (Women)
400-Yard Individual Medley
100-Yard Butterfly
3-Meter Diving (Men)
200-Yard Freestyle
100-Yard Breaststroke
100-Yard Backstroke

SAT., FEBRUARY 26
Preliminaries - 10 am200-Yard Backstroke
100-Yard Freestyle
200-Yard Breaststroke
200-Yard Butterfly
1,650-Yard Freestyle Preliminaries & Finals
Diving Preliminaries - 1 pm
Platform (Men & Women)

Finals - 6 pmPlatform Diving (Women)
200-Yard Backstroke
100-Yard Freestyle
200-Yard Breaststroke
200-Yard Butterfly
Platform Diving (Men)
400-Yard Freestyle Relay

Spring Champs Recap

The Spring Short Course Champs recap is now viewable on the home page. As a team RICE had 88% best times at the meet with over 30 swimmers achieving 100% best times at the meet. New time standards were achieved by many swimmers at the meets Check the recap for a full run down.The coaching staff wants to give a big pat on the back to all of the swimmers who had their hard work pay off this past weekend. 

Parents and Swimmers - Through out the next few weeks we will have group two and up perform test sets. These sets will be used for ranking each swimmer within groups, help establish intervals, show strong/weak areas and used as data for tracking purposes. Each test set is tailored to the group performing it but the work systems are the same for all groups. We be using the following sets:


Timed Swim  - T15,T20 and T30
Repeat Kick Set - 6 x 100, 10 x 100 and 15 x 100 Kick on R10 for overall time.
Repeat Swim Set - 6 x 100, 10 x 100 and 15 x 100 Swim on R 10 for overall time.
Repeat IM Set - 6 x 100, 10 x 100 and 8 x 200 IM Swim on R 10 for overall time.


We will rank each individual set within the group and do a complete ranking within the groups based on these sets. Additional information we will be using for tracking purposes will be practice attendance, Power Points ( based of swim times) and time standards achieved. While most of this data has been taken and recorded in the past we will now be sharing it with our swimmers on a more transparent basis. As swimmers who still have meets wrap up their competitions we will have them make up the sets they missed. We will perform these sets post champs competition, early season and mid season. It is important that your swimmer attends practice on a regular basis and arrives in a timely manner so we can ensure all swimmers have equal opportunity to swim each test set. 
If you have any questions please send me an email or catch me pre/post practice. I will be covering this in detail during our LC parent meetings in mid March. 


See you at the pool,
Coach Jason

Saturday Practice

Age Groupers and Seniors - With both 13 and Over Champs and Conference for the college team there will be no Saturday (2.26) practice due to coach coverage. 

There will also not be practice Saturday March 12th due to the March Madness masters meet at the RICE pool.

Coach Jason

Spring Champs 1

The Coaches wanted to send out a quick email congratulating all the swimmers on a great meet this past weekend. We will have a full recap out as soon as the final results get official.

Coach Jason

Masters Post Practice Social

Masters Swimmers - We will continue our practice of meeting for dinner after evening practice next Wednesday, February 23 at Black Walnut Café, 5510 Morningside, in Rice Village.

All Masters swimmers, morning and evening, are invited.  If the weather is good, we will sit on the patio.  See you there about 7 pm!

Thanks!

Al