Rice Leads Field After Day 1 of C-USA Championships

By Robert H. Kelly
Copyright 2008 TexSport Publications

HOUSTON, TEXAS (February 27, 2008) - The 2008 Conference USA Women's Swimming and Diving Championship and Invitational got off the an exciting start on Wednesday evening at the CRWC Natatorium on the campus of the University of Houston with a record performance by the SMU 800-yard freestyle relay team.

The squad of Jennifer Blackman, Petra Klosova, Candace Blackman and Sascha Van den Branden finished with the time of 7:04.87, shattering the pool and meet record they set last year of 7:10.49. The mark was good for an NCAA `A' qualifying time.

Rice came in second (7:21.75) with an NCAA `B' time, while East Carolina finished in third (7:34.43). The host Cougars finished in fourth (7:37.63) and Marshall took fifth (7:42.73).

In the first event of the meet, the 200-yard medley relay, the Rice team of Angela Wo, Pam Zelnick, Skylar Craig and Diane Gu finished in 1:43.29 to take the win and grab 40 early points. Defending champion SMU finished in a record time of 1:39.32, making the NCAA “A”cut. but was disqualified fot an early takeoff. League members East Carolina (1:45.01) and Marshall (1:47.64) officially came in second and third, respectively.

Rice leads the C-USA Championship team scoring after day one with 74 points, followed by East Carolina with 66 and Marshall with 60. SMU sits in fourth with 40 points on the strength of their record-setting relay, while Houston is fifth with 30 points.

On the men's side, teams from league schools East Carolina and SMU along with Hawaii and Cal State Bakersfield are also competing in the C-USA men's invitational. SMU leads that event after day one with 108 points, followed by East Carolina and Hawai'i with 104 and Cal State Bakersfield with 44.

The meet resumes at 10 a.m., Thursday with the preliminaries of the 500-yard freestyle, 200-yard individual medley and the 50-yard freestyle. The women's 3-meter diving preliminaries will begin around 1 p.m. The finals for those events are slated to begin around 6 p.m.

All-session tickets are available for only $25 for adults and $10 for youth. Single-day tickets are available for $10 for adults and $5 for students with ID. Youth includes children from 3 years old to high school. Children who are 2 years old and younger are admitted free.

Click here for complete meet results, team scores, and live stats. Championship information came be accessed by clicking here.