Rice University
Boise State
Swimmers Fall In Season-Opener At Boise State, 174-88
10/8/2010 12:00:00 AM | Swimming & Diving
Oct. 8, 2010
BOISE, Idaho -- The Rice trio of Shelby Bottoms, Alex O'Brien and Stephanie Wei won individual events, but the Rice swim team fell to defending Western Athletic Conference champion Boise State by a score of 174-88 in the opening dual meet of the season for both teams Friday night in Boise, Idaho.
Boise State won 11 of the meet's 14 swim events, including both relays, in a strong season-opening performance. The same two teams will be back in the pool on Saturday morning (Oct. 9) for a series of scored relay races.
Bottoms and Wei both led a pair of 1-2 Rice finishes in the 200-yard individual medley and 200-backstroke, respectively. Bottoms, who a year ago registered the second-fastest 200-IM time in Rice history, won the event Friday with a mark of 2:07.30. Freshman Quincy Christian placed second in the race with a time of 2:10.91. Bottoms also took second in both the 100- (52.65) and 200-freesyle (1:54.08).
Wei won the 200-back with time of 2:05.74 while freshman Michelle Gean touched-in second with a 2:08.11. O'Brien claimed the 200-breaststroke with a time of 2:24.44 that was five-one-hundredths of a second faster than Boise State's Erin Stotts (2:24.49).
Friday's first day of the two-meet weekend followed a traditional NCAA schedule. The second day however features an innovative list of relays that might cause the NCAA to do a double-take. Saturday's action has three traditional relays (800-free, 400-medley & 200-free), but there's also some pretty creative events the respective head coaches came up with to shake things up a little. Rice head coach Seth Huston, now in his ninth season at the helm of the Owl program, said swimmers often focus too much on making a particular time in a race. Since most of Saturday's relays aren't timed events in the NCAA, the untraditional meet allows the swimmers to focus on is winning each race.
"This relay format will give us an opportunity to race and compete, but not necessarily dwell on what their times are," said coach Huston. "It is early in the season and we will see plenty of traditional formats for most of the rest of the season."
Saturday's Relay Meet Schedule (1 PM, Oct. 9)
3 x 100 Butterfly
3 x 100 Backstroke
3 x 100 Breaststroke
800 Freestyle Relay
1 Meter Diving
500 Freestyle Relay (50-100-150-200)
400 Medley Relay
3 x 300 Freestyle Relay
4 x 100 IM
3 Meter Diving
3 x 50 Butterfly
3 x 50 Backstroke
3 x 50 Breaststroke
200 Freestyle Relay
(Meet Scoring: 9-4-3-2-1 individual events; 11-4-2 relays)
Players Mentioned
