Parish Wins 500-Freestyle; Owls Hold Day 1 Lead

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vs North Texas

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11 AM

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4 PM

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12 PM

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vs CSCAA Open Water Championship

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at Florida Atlantic Fun Meet

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ATLANTA, Ga. — Steady as ever, senior Ellery Parish won her third-straight individual title in the 500-yard freestyle to pace the Rice swimmers to the top spot in the team standings on the opening day of competition at the annual Conference USA Championships Thursday evening in Atlanta, Ga.

Day 1 Team Standings
Thru the first six events Rice holds the top spot in the team standings with 272 points. Defending meet champion Florida International is second with 248 points. Florida Atlantic and Marshall share third place (both 133 pts.), followed by North Texas (129) and Old Dominion (74).

Three-Peat Parish
For the third time in as many years Ellery Parish won the C-USA individual title in the 500-freestyle. Parish touched first over a starting field of 31 entries with a time of 4:44.77, just off her personal best mark from her sophomore season but a comfortable six seconds ahead of second place. In her collegiate career the San Antonio native has won five C-USA individual titles overall, as well as swam on an Owl 800-relay that won a league championship.

Scoring In Events
• Parish's win contributed 20 points to the team's scoring. In the 500-free the Owls also had a solid third place from Shannon Campbell (4:53.12), a seventh from Virginie Qian (4:58.71) and Briana Gellineau won consolation event (4:55.63).
• Rice registered a landslide of points in the 200-IM, including five in the Top 8: 2. Nicole Limberg 2:02.43; 3. Lauren Hurt 2:02.62; 4. Erin Vance 2:03.00; 5. Brittany Bui 2:03.34; 8. Marta Cano-Minarro 2:04.80; 11. Lauren Brantley 2:05.37 and 12. Hannah Sumbera 2:05.42.
• Madison Howe was the Owls' top finisher with a third place in the 50-yard freestyle (23.17). Sini Koivu was fourth (23.22), Becca Evans fifth (23.23) and Imogen Meers seventh (23.45).
• The Owls were second in both of the day's relays with a pair of season-best marks – 1:31.94 in the 200-FR and 3:40.99 in the 400-MR.

Coach Huston Said
"It was a great night for Rice," coach Huston said. "Ellery commanded the 500-free. She swam her race, took the lead at the half way point and blew the field away. Shannon put together a great race and moved up throughout the race and finished strong for third. Briana won the B final and had the lead from start to finish in a lifetime best.

"Nicole and Lauren Hurt practically had a photo finish," Huston said of the 200-IM. "Each led the race at one point, but couldn't quite get their hand on the wall first.

"Our sprinters racked big points in the Final of the 50-feestyle. We need to take this momentum into preliminaries on Friday and step up our relays as well."

Coming Up
The second day of the three-day meet is set to begin with prelim races at 9:30 a.m., followed by event finals at 5 pm (all Central Time). The Championship meet concludes on Saturday with the same two scheduled start times.

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