North Texas vs. Rice

HOUSTON, Texas, January 14. THE Rice trio of Ashten Ackerman, Shelby Bottoms and Karina Wlostowska all won two individual events to pace the Owl swimmers to a convincing 168-97 dual meet victory over visiting North Texas University Friday afternoon at the Gibbs Recreation & Wellness Center Competition Pool.

Not only did Rice win all of the meet's 14 swim events, including both relays, the Owls posted six 1-2 finishes on the day and twice took the top three spots in a race. Competing in the final home meet of her Rice career, senior Ashten Ackerman blazed to a pair of season-best times to win both the 200-yard butterfly (2:06.77) and 200-breaststroke (2:24.28).

Freshman Karina Wlostowska won the 50-freestyle (24.31) and 100-butterfly (58.18) after strong swims in the second half of each race. Junior Shelby Bottoms notched a win in the 100-freestyle (53.03) and posted a career-best 1:05.52 to lead a 1-2-3 Rice finish with Kylee Talwar (1:06.02) and Alex O'Brien (1:08.47) in the 100-breaststroke.

Talwar and O'Brien both had individual wins of their own by taking first in the 200-individual medley (2:09.15) and 500-freestyle (5:01.58), respectively. Junior Nicole Delaloye won the rugged 1,000-free with a season-best mark of 10:22.29. Sophomore Stephanie Wei claimed the 200-backstroke with mark of 2:04.04.

Freshmen standouts Chelsea Fong and Michelle Gean won the 200-freestyle (1:51.73) and 100-backstroke (58.64), respectively. The Rice foursome of Gean, Talwar, Bottoms and Fong combined for a first place in the 200-medley relay (1:47.87). Fong, freshman Lilly Marrow, sophomore Kim Steinhouse and Wlostowska held off a North Texas charge to win the 200-free relay with a time of 1:37.27. With so many victories up and down the roster and across so many events, Rice head coach Seth Huston had high praise for the Owls' effort – particularly in a winter meet at the University's outdoor pool.
"We swam really well, even with the weather conditions," said coach Huston. "We has some season-best times and a few lifetime bests today. The team did a really good job of focusing in the meet and not the weather or anything else.

"Obviously Ashten winning two events is huge," Huston added. "What better way to go out in your last home meet as a senior than to win two events? Shelby and Karina got it done with multi-event wins and it was really nice to see Nicole put it all together to win that 1,000 in a race that was really tight all the way. We did a good job today and this is a performance we can build-on, no question."

The Rice swimmers next compete at the LSU Quadruple-Dual Meet on Jan. 28-29 in Baton Rouge, La. The meet is the Owls' final competition before the Conference USA Championships next month.

The above article is a press release submitted to Swimming World Magazine. It has been posted in its entirety without editing. Swimming World offers all outlets the chance to reach our audience by contacting us at Newsmaster@swimmingworldmagazine.com. However, Swimming World reserves the right to choose what material is posted.

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