Incarnate Word, New Orleans vs. Rice

HOUSTON, Texas, November 7. SOPHOMORE Shelby Bottoms won two individual events and swam the anchor leg of the Owls' winning 200-yard medley relay to lead the Rice swim team to a pair of convincing dual meet wins over visiting New Orleans and Incarnate Word on the final day of competition Saturday afternoon at Rice's new on-campus Aquatics Center.

The Owls simultaneously defeated the University of New Orleans 222-92, and the University of the Incarnate Word 262-85. New Orleans defeated Incarnate Word 218-128 in the women's division of the double-dual meet. The UNO men's team defeated Incarnate Word by a score of 192.5 to 141.5.

Bottoms was on top of her game as the Owls won seven of the day's 10 swim races. The sophomore standout who joined the program from nearby Lamar High School swam a season-best 1:52.92 to win the 200-freestyle. She then led a 1-2-3 Rice finish in the 200-individual medley with a 2:07.41, placing ahead of teammates Kait Chura (2:07.70) and Alison Godbe (2:09.68). Bottoms also fought-off a late UNO charge on the freestyle leg of the medley relay as the Owl foursome of seniors Angela Wo and Pam Zelnick, junior Erin Mattson and Bottoms touched-in first place with a 1:50.09.

Bottoms explained the team's normal training regimen, mixed with the emotional lift of moving to a new, fast, facility – not to mention two near-perfect autumn days – all went in to the weekend's winning recipe. All that was left was for the team to win events. The Owls delivered.

"We all wanted to come out and swim really fast and we were able to do that with the new pool," Bottoms said. "This is a fast pool. All of us are all really excited about swimming here, plus we've all been training pretty hard and it was two great days to have a meet (outdoors). It just all came together for us. It was a great meet to go fast. I was pretty pleased with the way I swam. We had a lot of good results this weekend. I think we're ahead of where we were at this time last year."

Each of the members of the Owls' 200-medley relay also won individual events as the Blue & Gray wrapped-up its first meet in the program's new state-of-the-art Aquatics Center. Wo won the 100-butterfly with a mark of 59.22. Zelnick swam the team's best 50-free of the season (24.44) to lead a 1-2 Rice finish in the event. Freshman Kim Steinhouse placed a close-second in the 50-free with a 24.46, her new collegiate best time while swimming on her 19th birthday. Mattson was an individual winner in the 200-butterfly with a new Aquatics Center record of 2:07.84.

Rice's distance swimmers dominated the competition with a 1-2-3-4 finish in the 1,000-freestyle. Sophomore Alex O'Brien was tied for third in the 500-free on Friday's opening day of the meet, but bounced-back strong with the squad's best time of the year (10:23.17) to win the 1,000. Junior Karen Gerken cut more than 30 seconds off her previous best mark of the season with a 10:31.14 for second place. Sophomore Nicole Delaloye was a close third with a 10:31.31 in her first 1,000 of the new season. Freshman Danielle Spence closed-out the Owl sweep of the top four spots with a season-best 10:32.87.

The Owls registered second-place finishes in three events, but the team posted two new season-bests in the process. Zelnick swam a 1:06.52 for second in the 100-breaststroke while the relay of Zelnick, Mattson, Godbe and Bottoms clocked a 3:33.41 for second in the 400-free relay.

Rice head coach Seth Huston, now in his eighth season at the helm of the Owl swim program, had praise for how the team performed. His praise was matched for the other star of the weekend's home meet – the Owls' new home.

"Everyone was a little wide-eyed walking around (the Aquatics Center)," Huston said, "and that's understandable. What I saw was us swim pretty well. We had good times in events, we competed and we won races. We did a good job. I liked our distance events and I was really pleased with the I.M. Pam and Kim had a really good race in the 50 and we had some pretty good legs on the end of that 400-free relay. I was pretty happy with that too. It was a good weekend, our best meet of the season by far."

The Rice swimmers next compete at the University of Nebraska Cornhusker Invitational on Nov. 19-22. The Owls return to Lincoln, Neb., to defend their team title that the squad won at the same meet against an elite field of more than 10 other Division I universities.

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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