SWIMMING: Meets at SMU, TCU start season well
On Saturday, the women's team pulled off a win at TCU, 120-116, while the men's team suffered an 80-124 loss. Both teams fell to SMU on Friday in Dallas, where the men were defeated 66-113 and the women lost 79-103.
"I thought it went well," Head Coach Kris Wingenroth said about the week. "We raced hard and scored well."
At the TCU meet, the women took first place in both the 400-meter medley and the 400-meter freestyle relays.
Junior Heather Draper, sophomore Robin Davidson, junior Cory Teague and sophomore Meghan Marty raced the medley, while in the freestyle Teague, freshman Liz Corneliuson, junior Carrie Coving-ton and freshman Stacey Caldwell came away with the win.
The women were again victorious in the 1,000-meter freestyle, as freshman Rachel Doyle earned the first-place crown by coming in almost four seconds ahead of TCU's Robyn King. Sophomore Tricia Besselman followed for third place.
Not to be outdone, Teague raced into the first-place spot in the 50-meter freestyle, the event in which she holds the university record, while Davidson finished right behind in second place, and Marty in third.
Rice women kept racking up the first-place finishes that day as senior Ginny Farmer took first in the 200-meter individual medley.
Farmer also finished second in the 200-meter fly. In the 100-meter freestyle, Covington squeaked into first place by .22 seconds.
Draper took yet another first-place award in the 200-meter backstroke, while senior Hilary Grabe finished third in the same event.
In the 200-meter freestyle, Covington placed second, as Corneliuson grabbed the third-place title.
The first-place finish in the 500-meter freestyle went to Doyle, while Corneliuson nabbed a third-place spot.
In the 200-meter breaststroke, Farmer finished second, while Davidson darted into third.
The men's team also had its share of victories, as senior Steve Quance captured the first-place spot for both the 50- and 10-meter freestyles, while sophomore Dave Stigant found first-place victory in the 200-meter backstroke.
Sophomore David Henry tasted gold as well, finishing first in the 500-meter freestyle by .61 seconds, as freshman Jason Ahuero came in first in the 200-meter breaststroke.
The 400-meter relay team equaled the success of its female counterpart with a first-place finish by Henry, senior Jim Bridenstine, freshman Adrian Wong and freshman Mychal Murray.
The 400-meter relay team, made up of Quance, Bridenstine, Stigant and senior Jonathan Armstrong, finished in third place.
In the 200-meter fly, Bridenstine dashed into third place, while in the 200-meter individual medley, Armstrong also finished third.
Wingenroth noted that Rice does not offer diving and that the 32 points available for the diving portion of the competition were awarded to TCU.
Friday's dual meet at SMU did not yield the same results as did the TCU meet.
"The flu is going around the team," Wingenroth said, "and I think that might be part of the problem."
The men placed first and third in the 200-meter medley relay, with Stigant, Armstrong, Bridenstine and Wong finishing first, and Ahuero, junior Christian Selchau-Hansen, sophomore Deb Bhowmick and senior Alex Fuller finishing third.
The 200-meter freestyle relay team of Quance, Bridenstine, Henry and Murray also captured a first-place finish.
Quance again found first-place victory in the 200-meter freestyle, and placed second in the 100-meter freestyle, while Henry finished third in the 500-meter freestyle.
In the 100-meter backstroke, Stigant battled for a second-place finish, while Bridenstine placed second in the 100-meter fly.
The women fared roughly the same as the men. A 200-meter freestyle relay team of Teague, Marty, Caldwell and junior Julie Birch finished first, while another team made up of Grabe, Doyle, Draper and junior Erin McDonough placed third in the same event.
The 200-meter medley relay team of Draper, Farmer, Besselman and Corneliuson finished in second place.
In the 400-meter individual medley, Farmer finished in first place, while Teague placed first, and Draper came in third in the 100-meter backstroke.
Covington placed second in the 50-meter freestyle, while third place was nabbed by Corneliuson in the 200-meter freestyle. Doyle dashed in for third place in the 500-meter freestyle.
In the 100-meter breaststroke, Davidson chalked up a second-place finish, as Farmer followed behind her for third place.
Wingenroth rated the dual meets as "progress checks to see how we are, physically and mentally, for the conference championship."
Rice has one more meet left in the regular season, a Feb. 8 home meet with Texas A&M University, before the Western Athletic Conference championship at the beginning of March.
After the big win at theUniversity of Hawaii, in which both Rice teams overcame the deficit left by its lack of a diving squad to annihilate Hawaii, Wingenroth is optimistic that Rice will hold its ground at the championship meet.
"I feel very confident that we'll swim well in the conference championship," Wingenroth said.
"Everyone is real excited about being in the new conference. It will be a more competitive meet."
This item appeared in the Sports section of the January 31, 1997 issue.
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