RICE Aquatics - Outside the Lane Lines

Courtesy of RICE.edu


HOUSTON -- The Rice swim team won its first league title Saturday night, taking the 2011 Conference USA crown after more than three days of rugged competition held across town at the University of Houston Recreation & Wellness Center Natatorium.

The Owls built just a narrow five-point lead in the team standings after the final event held Friday. On Saturday the Blue & Gray extended the lead and swam-away with the C-USA Championship. Rice finished with with a total of 702 team points. East Carolina was second with 676.5 points while SMU was third (658 pts.) Meet host Houston was fourth (522 pts.) while Tulane was fifth (313.5) and Marshall was sixth (279).

For Rice head coach Seth Huston, the 2011 C-USA coach of the year in for the second-straight season, the roller-coaster season was a matter of getting everyone on the team on the same page. That is even more critical when the team is a swim team, and does not have any competitors in springboard or platform diving. Rice won the league crown without competing in the three diving events.

"Over the years, I kept thinking how can we ever make it happen?" Huston said. "This year all the pieces were kind of coming together. Even though it didn't really seem like it from someone on the outside, I felt like we were doing a lot of things right. Finally, the last pieces came together the last couple of weeks. We put it all together at the right time, the conference meet."

"Most anybody will tell you without diving you're not going to win, that's just the way it is," Huston said. "That's always kind of fun to try and prove them wrong. This was just a complete team effort. I am really proud of the team. They earned it."

The Rice distance swimmers set the tone early on Saturday. The Owls landed three of the top four spots and six in the top ten to pile-up some needed breathing room in the team standings. Freshman Quincy Christian finished second with season-best 16:45.58 that is the fifth-fastest mile in school history. Danielle Spence was third (16:45.58) and Alex O'Brien was fourth (16:53.30). 

Team depth and getting into the championship finals proved to be the key. Rice grouped three in the finals of the 200-backstroke. Senior Kait Chura was fourth (2:00.34), Michelle Gean was sixth and Stephanie Wei was seventh (2:02.45).

Chelsea Fong (51.03) and Kim Steinhouse (51.46) were seventh and eighth, respectively in the 100-freestyle with a pair of solid swims. O'Brien came up big with a third in the 200-backstroke (2:17.69) and Ashten Ackerman (2:22.31) and Kylee Talwar (2:20.59) were eighth and tenth.

Senior Erin Mattson was third (2:01.87) and junior Shelby Bottoms were fourth (2:02.58) in the 200-butterfly. Ackerman chipped-in a top ten in the race and the Owls were in business heading into the final relay, the 4x100-freestyle.

At this stage Rice almost had the meet mathematically locked-up. The Owls only needed to finish the race and not get disqualified with a false start or leaving the blocks too soon. Rice just needed to finish the race and no other team in the field would be able to catch team in the final standings.

The relay foursome of Kim Steinhouse, Michelle Gean Shelby Bottoms andChelsea Fong could have played it embarrassingly safe and even second place team (East Carolina) would not have been able to move ahead. To prove they had earned it, however, the Owls finished second in the race with a season-best 3:24.36 that provisionally qualified for the NCAA Championships.

Rice locked-up its first swimming title and after collecting the championship trophy gave coach Huston a celebratory shove into the Natatorium's deep end near the diving platform's 10-meter tower. Then assistant coach Jada Hallmark was in the water, and one-by-one the champions followed their coaches in for one last victory dip. The team then did the school's familiar "Stand & Cheer" cheer. A contingent of happy Rice fans in the stands joined-in.

One conclusion was certain as the Owls began jumping into the pool's deep end Saturday night. Rice had the divers to win a conference championship all along.