Rice University
UH First Chance Meet
Owls Fast At First Chance
2/14/2020 2:59:00 PM | Swimming & Diving
Next Stop C-USA Championships
With the meet serving as a final competitive tune-up for Rice and Houston's respective upcoming conference championships, there was no team scoring Friday between the crosstown foes. The focus was to treat the meet as a rehearsal for conference in a time-trials structure. The results were certainly promising.
Cano-Minarro blazed to a career-best 1:59.17 in only her second time to compete in the 200-butterfly in her collegiate career. It is the No. 5 time in Rice history and the No. 2 time in Conference USA this season. Senior Sarah Nowaski also posted a new season-best to take second in the 200-fly (2:01.00), and then she returned a short time later to notch the day's best mark in the 500-freestyle (4:57.85).
Junior Ellery Parish and freshman Zoe Spitz both swam season-bests of 1:59.62 and 2:01.59, respectively, for a 1-2 finish in the 200-backstroke. Freshman Virginie Qian registered a season-best 4:21.81 in the 400-IM to vault into C-USA's No. 3 seed in the event. Erin Vance likewise notched a season-best 2:18.24 to take first in the 200-breaststroke.
For all the improved performances, the short-course yards meet was only have the story. There was also a series of events in long-course meters, and the Owls delivered there as well. Hannah Sumbera had the day's best mark in the 200-meter IM (2:22.49). Nowaski won the 200-meter butterfly with a steady 2:16.43.
The First Chance tune-up is complete. The Rice swim team next competes at annual C-USA Championships in Atlanta from Feb. 26-29 (Wednesday-Saturday). The conference meet will be held at the Georgia Tech Swim Center that hosted the 1996 Olympics.
Players Mentioned
