Conference USA Championships: Day Three

HOUSTON, Texas, February 26. THE third day of the 2010 Conference USA Swimming & Diving Championship and Invitational wrapped up Friday night at the CRWC Natatorium on the University of Houston campus with four-time defending champion SMU grasping a 98-point lead heading into the final day of competition.

The Mustangs won the 200-yard freestyle relay, 100-yard butterfly, 100-yard breaststroke and the 100-yard backstroke to finish the day with 503 points. Rice finished the day in second place after tallying 405 points, followed by East Carolina (397). Houston (364.50) fell to fourth place while Tulane (187) and Marshall (125) round out the conference schools.

In the invitational scoring, North Dakota has 222.50 points, followed by Cal State Bakersfield (209) and Northern Colorado (134). SMU tallied another relay win with the efforts of Sascha Van den Branden, Justine Clark, Emily Vavourakis and Ana Santos in the 200-yard freestyle relay. The Mustangs touched the wall in 1:31.84 which was good enough for an NCAA `B’ qualifying time. Also attaining a `B’ qualifying time was second-place finisher East Carolina (1:32.54).

Women’s 1-meter diving was up next and once again 2008 Olympic silver medalist Anastasia Podzniakova of Houston took first-place honors by a wide margin, scoring 357.25. SMU’s Audra Egenolf earned a second-place finish with a six-dive score of 306.75.

Reka Kovacs of Houston claimed the 400-yard individual medley with a time of 4:16.24, which broke the Conference USA meet and pool record. The previous best was set by SMU’s Jennifer Basel with 4:17.29 (Feb. 29, 2008). SMU’s Maroua Mathlouthi came in second place (4:18.85) followed by a trio of Rice swimmers.

Touching in a time of 54.25 and earning an NCAA `B’ qualifying, Denisa Smolenova won the 100-yard butterfly. Erin Mattson (55.63) of Rice came in second, just nipping teammate Angela Wo (54.67) who finished in third, respectively.

Three NCAA `B’ qualifying times were set in the 200-yard freestyle led by first-place finisher, Van den Branden (1:47.81) of SMU. East Carolina’s Rachel Blue came in second with a time of 1:49.19 followed by SMU’s Ana Santos (1:49.22).

SMU’s Devon Callaghan won the 100-yard breaststroke in a time of 1:01.25, breaking her previous record from a year ago (1:01.37). Coming in second was Rachel McCall (1:03.17) of Cal State Bakersfield edging ECU’s Natalia Favoreto (1:03.24) who finished third.

A third record was set at the 2010 C-USA Swimming and Diving Championship and Invitational when SMU’s Svendsen knifed through the water in a time of 52.65 in the 100-yard backstroke. This time was the first NCAA `A’ qualifying time of the tournament and clipped the previous record of SMU’s Anja Carmanby by nearly a second (53.58 – Feb. 29, 2008).

Tulane’s Kayla Alf-Huynh had a NCAA `B’ time in the 100-yard backstroke coming in second place with a time of 55:49.

Competing in the C-USA Men’s Invitational are league school teams East Carolina and SMU, as well as invited teams from Hawaii, Cal State Bakersfield and North Dakota.SMU leads the event after day three with 582 points, followed by Hawaii with 534 points. Cal State Bakersfield sits in third with 396 points, while East Carolina (312) and North Dakota (218) hold on to fourth and fifth respectively

The meet resumes at 10 a.m., Saturday with the preliminaries of the 200-yard backstroke, 100-yard freestyle, 200-yard breaststroke, 200-yard butterfly and 1650-yard freestyle. The men’s and women’s platform diving preliminaries will begin around 1 p.m. The finals for those events are slated to begin around 6 p.m.

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.

Name*

Email*

Welcome to our community. We invite you to join our discussion. Our community guidelines are simple: be respectful and constructive, keep on topic, and support your fellow commenters. Commenting signifies that you agree to our Terms of Use