Rice Defeats Miami

Rice opened the day with a rare 1-2 finish in the 400-yard medley relay (3:53.77) and never looked back. Flanigan then won the first of her two events, moving up from her usual 500-freestyle to the 1,000. The freshman from Austin posted her first collegiate victory with a steady 10:22.61 ahead second place finisher Christine Anderson (10:33.11) of Miami.

"We bumped Erin up (to the 1,000) just to mix it up a bit," said Rice head coach Seth Huston, now in his tenth year at the helm of the program. "We had her in that event just to get a little different look and see how things were going. She won that 1,000-free and then came back and won the 200-butterfly (four events later). Where she may have been just a bit slower (in the butterfly) than last week after that 1,000, I thought she did some technical things a little better this week and that was good to see."

Flanigan won the 200-butterfly with a time of 2:05.18 after out-dueling Miami freshman Lucy Worrall by four-tenths of second (2:05.59). Alex O’Brien had an almost equally-close race with teammate Quincy Christian in the 400-individual medley, 4:31.44 to 4:31.96. The Owls posted a 1-2-3 in the race as freshman Madison Livingston was third with a collegiate-best 4:39.35.

O’Brien also led a 1-2 Rice finish with Danielle Spence in the 500-free. The duo both posted new season-bests at 5:04.66 and 5:08.18, respectively. The Blue & Gray also had a 1-2 finish from Chelsea Fong (1:51.92) and Shelby Bottoms (1:54.35) in the 200-freestle. Fong was a close second 200-backstroke (two-tenths of a second at 2:05.25), but she and Bottoms later teamed with Lilly Marrow and Marissa Konicke for an Owl win the 400-free relay (3:30.51) to close out the day’s action.

"Today went pretty well," coach Huston explained. "We may not have been as fast as we were last week, but we had some nice performances and we competed. Alex and Erin were double-winners. Chelsea stepped-up again and had some really nice races. She won the 200-free and got just out-touched in the 200-backstroke. It was nice to see Quincy in there racing. I thought she performed a lot better this week. Lilly Marrow had some nice swims today, on the relays in particular which is really good to see.

"We did some changes mid-meet just because we had a feeling of who was on," coach Huston added. "The team responded. It may give us a little momentum heading into a big meet next week."

After hosting C-USA rival SMU on Oct. 15 and Miami-Fla. on Saturday, Rice next hosts its third big meet in a row next weekend. The Owls’ first five-team two-day meet at the Rice Competition Pool features Arkansas, Nebraska, Boise State and the University of Houston going head-to-head on Oct. 28-29.

The University of Miami swimming & diving team concluded its two-day affair in Houston on Saturday, taking part in a dual meet hosted by Rice University at the Rice Aquatics Center Competition Pool. It was the second time in as many years the Hurricanes have visited Rice for a dual meet.

A day after defeating the Houston Cougars, the Miami Hurricanes swimming & diving team got right back in the water Saturday, traveling just across the city of Houston for a meet with the Rice Owls. Overall, the Canes collected 19 top-five finishes in the meet.

Christine Anderson captured a second place time of 10:33.11 in the 1000 yard freestyle, while Haley Nicholson was fifth (11:11.56). Hannah Kling turned in a third place time of 1:55.28 in the 200 yard freestyle, and teammate Lucy Worrall was fifth as she touched the wall at 1:57.40.

UM took the top two marks in the 50 yard freestyle, using a winning time of 23.64 from Kelsi Hall, as well as a second place finishing time of 24.45 by Celeste Degen. Kayla Smith was fifth at 25.05.

Worrall bounced back for a second place finish of 2:05.59 in the 200 yard butterfly, and Hall earned the win for the Hurricanes in the 100 yard freestyle in a performance of 52.00.

Kling scored the second win of the day for UM in the 200 yard backstroke as she registered a winning time of 2:05.02. Roxanne Meyer was third in the race at 2:05.32. Anderson would later earn the team’s third win during the 200 yard breaststroke race, using a mark of 2:23.21 in the victory. Dana Hatic would score a podium finish in third as she touched the pad at 2:23.93.

The meet concluded with the Hurricanes’ 400 yard freestyle relay team of Hall, Degen, Katherine Nicholson and Smith securing second place in a performance of 3:33.75.

Rice won the dual meet by a score of 131-74.

The Hurricanes will get back to competition on Friday, Nov. 4 when Miami hosts Indian River State College for a dual meet at the Norman A. Whitten University Center Pool beginning at 2 p.m.