Swimming: Rice Holds Fourth At WAC Championships

Swimming: Rice Holds Fourth At WAC Championships

2/25/2005

Friday Finals (word doc)
Friday Prelims (word doc)

Lauren Hill posted a third, sixth and swam on the Owls' record-tying relay Friday.

SAN ANTONIO ? The Rice senior duo of Urska Ros and Lauren Hill both finished third in their respective events to keep the Owls in fourth place after the third day of competition at the 2005 Western Athletic Conference Championship Friday evening in San Antonio.

Ros was third in the 100-yard butterfly with a personal best and an NCAA provisional qualifying time of 54.97. She led a trio of Owls who scored big for the team in the event's championship finals with Lauren Hill taking sixth (56.34) and Kiana Taheri placing seventh (56.82).

Rice has 316 team points and trails front-running SMU. The Mustangs lead the seven team field with 607 points. Hawaii is second with 466 and Nevada is in third 352. New WAC affiliate member Northern Arizona (277) is fifth followed by San Jose State (173) and San Diego (141).

After Hill finished sixth in the butterfly she came back and took third in the 100-breaststroke with a season-best mark of 1:04.06. Senior Andrea Hurn won the consolation finals with her best time of the year 1:05.97.

Owl senior Adi Bichman posted a dramatic fifth place finish in the 400-individual medley. Her near career-best time of 4:22.72 provisionally qualified her for the NCAA's next month. True freshman Jennifer Hill scored with a seventh in the championship final (4:28.22) while senior Jenny Voight was 11th overall (4:34.70).

Freshmen Brittany Massengale and Amy Halsey were both sixth in the 200-freestyle and 100-backstroke, respectively. Massengale provisionally qualified for the NCAAs with the third-best time in school history (1:50.14). Halsey's prelim mark of 57.21 is the fifth-fastest at Rice and the Owls' best in the last four years. Junior Laura Healey won the consolation finals of the 100-back while Jane Keith was 14th.

The foursome of Halsey, Lauren Hill, Ros and Healey teamed for a third place finish in the 400-medley relay. The group's 3:47.37 tied the school record in the event which had stood eight years.

The WAC championships will conclude Saturday at the Palo Alto College Natatorium in San Antonio. There will be two sessions, starting with preliminaries in the morning followed by championship finals in the evening.

This is the final WAC swimming championship for Rice. The team moves to Conference USA next season. Northern Arizona and San Diego are competing in their first WAC championship as affiliate members.

Results from both the prelims and finals can be viewed as word documents at the links listed above.

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