Rice Swimmers Host Elite Invitational Meet Friday-Saturday
10/27/2011 12:00:00 AM | Swimming & Diving
Oct. 27, 2011
The defending Conference USA champion Rice Owls swim team hosts four high-caliber programs in one of the top collegiate meets in the country this Friday and Saturday in the inaugural Rice-Holiday Inn Hotel & Suites Medical Center Fall Invitational.
Joining the Owls at the fantastic Rice Aquatics Center Competition Pool are Arkansas, Boise State, Houston and Nebraska in a two-day, 18-event, meet that gets under way at 4 pm on Friday (Oct. 28). There are then two more full sessions of the multi-team meet scheduled for Saturday (Oct. 29), which begin at 9 am and 1:30 pm.
It's easy to conclude a meet like this weekend's Invitational is an indication about the current state of the Rice swim program. Where hosting even one elite opponent in a swim meet might have seemed outside the program's reach a few years ago, the University built a new facility in 2009 and the Owls won the C-USA conference title in 2011. Rice swimming has been able to host national powers Texas A&M, SMU and a Miami-Fla. team that thought so highly of the facility and the competition that last week the Hurricane swimmers made a rare return road trip to Rice for the second time in as many years.
This weekend's meet provides a new and higher-level challenge for the Owl swimmers. Rice head coach Seth Huston said the team has certainly been in challenging meets before, but he's happy to have a challenge like this one at home.
"We are excited to host this event," coach Huston said. "We have highly respected programs competing in the meet, and it gives us and our guests an opportunity to enjoy Houston at a great time of year and perform in our first class Aquatics Center."
For the meet the Top 16 finishers in each event will score, with a maximum of four swimmers from each team. Each team will score two relays. Springboard diving events will be held at the University of Houston on Saturday beginning at 11 am.
"We will get a chance to race in a bigger variety of events this weekend," coach Huston added. "As the season-schedule has played out this meet is close to our most grueling time of year in training. We've had some varying degrees of fatigue. (Senior) Alex O'Brien (and sophomores) Lilly Marrow and Quincy Christian have been swimming very well. Our freshmen have done very well to date. This weekend will be a big test for them."
The Rice-Holiday Inn Hotel & Suites Medical Center Fall Invitational full schedule is as follows:
Session I - Friday (Oct. 28), 4 pm start
400 medley relay
500 free
200 IM
50 free
800 free relay
Session II - Saturday (Oct. 29) 9 am start
200 medley relay
400 IM
100 butterfly
200 free
100 breaststroke
100 backstroke
200 free relay
1650 free
Session III - 1:30 pm start
200 backstroke
100 free
200 breaststroke
200 butterfly
400 free relay
All Diving at UH
Three-meter at 11 am, one-meter to follow
Players Mentioned
