Rice University
SMU
Swimmers Fall To SMU In Season-Opener, 156-106
10/15/2011 12:00:00 AM | Swimming & Diving
Oct. 15, 2011
Complete Results html
Complete Results pdf 
HOUSTON - Rice sophomore Chelsea Fong set a facility record with a victory in the 200-yard individual medley, and senior Alex O'Brien was sound and solid with a win in the 1,000-freestyle, but the SMU swimmers claimed a 156-106 Conference USA dual meet victory over the Owls in the season-opener for both teams Saturday afternoon at the Rice Aquatics Center Competition Pool.
Last spring the Owls snapped SMU's streak of winning 14-straight conference championships in women's swimming by claiming the 2011 C-USA title. That result from last February could have been on the Mustangs' mind Saturday. SMU won 12 of the meet's 14 events and set seven facility records in the process.
SMU was certainly sharp, but Rice head coach Seth Huston pointed out the Mustangs had some company. Chelsea Fong swam a 2:05.61 to win the 200-IM with a new pool record. O'Brien looked to be in midseason form with an eye-opening 10:18.47 in the 1,000-free that led a 1-2-3 Owl finish ahead of teammates Danielle Spence (10:32.69) and Quincy Christian (10:40.57). With his eye on the bigger picture Coach Huston, the back-to-back C-USA Coach of the Year who is now in his tenth season at the helm of the Owl program, stated that though the meet may not have been his kind of final result the Owls weren't off my much. He even hinted the team may be further along at this point than the same Rice team that went on to win the C-USA title last season.
"We wanted to see a win today, no question about that," coach Huston said. "However, I thought we swam really well and we did get out and race and compete. We were in the thick of things over and over and over again.
"I've never seen us compete, and take races down to the wire like that, with SMU - in a dual meet or even in the conference championships last year," coach Huston added. "Alex had a great 1,000-free. She usually doesn't go that fast later in the season when she gets even more training under her belt, so that was really good to see. I thought Chelsea just was outstanding. She had to go up against one of SMU's best in two of the races. It was great to see (freshman) Casey Clark get out and get after that butterfly" (where she finished in second place by two-tenths of a second).
"(Freshman) Erin Flanigan swam well to take second in both her 200-butterfly and 500-freestyle, and was just on the wrong side of finishes," Huston explained. "She was right in the races the whole way. She was racing against an NCAA automatic qualifier, so she needs to be in stride one of the best in the country. Kim Steinhouse and Marissa Konicke had great 50-freesyles. I thought Kim's 100-free was nice on the second half of the race. Michelle Gean and Stephanie Wei had nice backstroke swims, with Michelle in the 100 and Stephanie in the 200.
"It's just really good signs for where we're at right now," the head coach continued. "The score did not reflect how well I thought we swam overall. SMU had a great meet. I can't control how well SMU is doing, but I was very happy with how we performed. We did great fighting for those second place finishes, now we need to get our hand on the wall for some of those victories."
The meet's full results are viewable at the above link.
Players Mentioned
