Rice split home dual meets this weekend, taking down North Texas on Friday 139-67 and falling to the SMU Mustangs on Saturday 152-136.
Rice vs. North Texas
Rice finished on the top of the podium in both relays against Conference USA foe, North Texas. In the 400 medley relay, the team of Alicia Caldwell, MC Schillinger, Kiley Beall, and Jacey Parham finished in 3:50.27. At the close of the meet, Rice’s team of Shelly Patton, Cora McKenzie, Taylor Armstrong and Hanna Huston touched in 1:37.23- beating the North Texas “A” team, who finished in 1:37.70.
Rice had first place finishes in nine of the eleven events contested They had a very strong showing in the distance events, sweeping the 1000 free (Huston 10:11.17, Sydney Franzen 10:23.77, Anniina Ala-Seppala 10:27.62) and 500 free (Kaitlyn Swinney 5:01.17, Franzen 5:06.87, Armstrong 5:08.94). Swinney went on to win the 200 IM as well (2:05.03).
Parham of Rice and Bianca Bocsa of the Mean Green traded wins in dramatic fashion in the 50 free and 100 back. Parham won the free (24.01 to 24.11) and Bocsa took the back (57.80 to 57.83). Mean Green stand out Sarah Vaisse also narrowly won the 100 breast for North Texas, touching out Rice Owl Schillinger 1:04.17 to 1:04.41. Vaisse also scored points for her team as part of the second place medley relay and taking third in the 20o IM (2:096.97). Another double event face off came in the 100 and 200 free. Austrailian Caldwell took the win in both events over Isabelle Morris of North Texas (51.24 to 52.32 and 1:51.03 to 1:51.92).
Rice vs. SMU
In their second consecutive home dual meet, Rice fell to the SMU Mustangs. Sophomores from Rice, Swinney and Caldwell, both had strong meets. Swinney won both the 200 back (2:03.25) and 400 IM (4:24.32). She also finished second to teammate Julie Litver in the 100 back (Swinney 58.15, Litver 57.97). Caldwell finished first in the 200 free (1:50.73) and third in the 50 free (24.39). She followed this up by touching first in the 100 free (57.17).
The same threesome that swept the 1000 against North Texas did it again against SMU (Huston 10:17.28, Ala-Seppala 10:28.73, Franzen 10:32.19). Both Huston and Franzen also finished in the top 3 in the 500 free (5:02.54, 5:08.89), yet they both fell to Mustang Madeline Hoch 5:00.76. Hoch also had top three finishes in the 100 free and 200 free (52.35, 1:51.26).
The Mustangs swept both relays. In the 200 Medley, the team of Tiffany Sudarma, Tara-Lynn Nicholas, Marne Eramus and Hannah Rogers beat out Rice 1:44.07 to 1:45.06. The meet ultimately came down to the last event of the meet, the 400 free relay. The Mustangs’ Vicky Cunningham, Eramus, Rogers and Hoch (3:27.06) beat out Rice’s Caldwell, Armstrong, Huston, and Parham (3:29.65). The Mustangs also swept both diving events.
In addition to her relay contributions, Nicholas also swept the breaststroke events, winning the 100 breast in 1:04.24 and 200 in 2:19.55.
Here’s what Head Coach Seth Huston had to say about the meet against SMU:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJaH9GHofzrX8iUgMIANEow/videos
Both North Texas and Rice return to competition at the Houston Invitational November 19-21. SMU will take on LSU and Tulane next weekend in Louisiana.
