In a battle that came down to the very last really, the Incarnate Word women finished a Bayou City split with a win over the University of Houston by score of 124-117.
Much like in their dual meet against Rice on Friday, it was junior Lana Nguyen who stepped up big for Incarnate Word. She pulled off a sprint sweep on Saturday, winning the 50 free in 23.75 and the 100 free in 52.13. While the 50 was just a hair better than she was a day earlier, she improved roughly eight-tenths on her 100 free.
That improvement came entirely on the front-half of the swim. Nguyen’s comparative splits:
- Against Rice: 25.81/27.09 = 52.90
- Against UH: 25.05/27.08 = 52.13
Where Nguyen really came up big, though, was in the meet-closing 400 free relay. With the win on the line, she took a previously tight race (the two teams were separated by less than a tenth after 200 yards) and blew it wide open with a third-leg split of 51.60: again pushing the front-half of her race.
Incarnate Word rolled to a 3:33.01 victory, with Houston taking 2nd in 3:34.30 (making some of that margin back in the last leg).
Those 100 free results show the benefit of back-to-back meets like this. Nguyen was able to make a specific change to her 100 free race strategy and it resulted in a significant improvement in results.
Among the winners for Houston were sophomore Maya Owens, who won the 100 fly in 58.15. The Cougars also racked up big points in diving, where they twice went 1-2-3 led by wins from Danielle Shedd (310.73) on the 1-meter and Taylor Olanski (290.48) on the 3-meter.
Incarnate Word resumes their season next weekend with another road-trip to Florida Gulf Coast, while Houston is awaiting a showdown of their own with Rice next Thursday.
Greatings for Lana from Ukraine! Great times!
*greetings:)