The FGCU swimming and diving team returned to the pool and defeated C-USA foe Rice by a final margin of 134-71 at the FGCU Aquatics Center on Sunday morning. The Eagles, who won 9 of 11 events, improved their dual-meet record this season to 7-0.
"The girls swam tough today after only being back for one day after a 10 day break," said FGCU head coach Neal Studd. "We were a little up and down, which was expected, but ended up beating a very good and very well coached Rice team and are happy with the win."
Kicking off and wrapping up the meet, the Green and Blue finished first and third in both the 200-yard medley relay and 200-yard freestyle relay to earn a combined 26 points toward their 134-point total. The relay team of Elise Haan (Naples, Fla./Gulf Coast HS), Katie Armitage (Bushey, United Kingdom/Queens School Bushey), Yee Ching Wong (Hong Kong, China/Diocesan Girls' School) and Kristen Julien (San Fernand, Trinidad and Tobago/St. Stephen's College) finished first in the medley relay after touching the pads in 1:45.01. Later, the quartet of Lani Cabrera (Bridgetown, Barbados/St. Ursala's Secondary School), Sara Hamilton (Stonehaven, Scotland/Mackie Academy), Barbara Caraballo (Ponce, Puerto Rico/Indian River/Newsome HS) and Katie Latham (Deal, Kent, United Kingdom/Sir Roger Manwood's School) clocked a 1:36.57 in the freestyle relay and won the event.
Six of the eight aforementioned relay participants also earned individual wins on Sunday. Cabrera improved her record in the 1,000-yard freestyle to 6-0 this season as she clocked a time of 10:13.23 and narrowly defeated Rice's Hannah Huston. The Barbados native held a lead the entire race, but the two participants were never separated by more than a second. Teammate Melissa Marinheiro (Davie, Fla./West Broward HS) finished third in the event.
Additionally, Latham earned her sixth win of the season in the 50-yard freestyle as she touched the pads in 23.84 seconds and finished just ahead of teammate Hamilton. FGCU placed four swimmers in the top five of the event as Kirsten Jamison (Tucson, Ariz/Arizona/Catalina Foothills HS) and Julien finished fourth and fifth, respectively.
Caraballo then won her fifth 200-yard IM event of the season after finishing in 2:04.83, nearly two seconds ahead of the field. Christina Kaas Elmgreen (Charlottenlund, Denmark/Ordrup Gymnasium) placed third in the event in a time of 2:08.01.
Similar to the 50-yard freestyle, FGCU saw four swimmers finish in the top five of the 100-yard butterfly, led by Wong's pace of 56.28 seconds. Elmgreen finished second, followed by Caraballo and Nicole Oppel (LeClaire, Iowa/Pleasant Vally HS), who finished fourth and fifth, respectively.
Haan extended her perfect record in the 100-yard backstroke to 5-0 this season as she touched the pads in 56.24 seconds and finished ahead of teammate Sandra Wilk (Lexington, Ky./Paul Laurence Dunbar HS), who clocked a time of 57.37 seconds.
Marinheiro earned her third win of the season in the 500-yard freestyle she clocked a time of 5:03.21 and edged Rice's Huston and teammate Cabrera. Like the other lengthy freestyle race, the top finishers swam nearly in unison the entire race as Marinheiro lead from coast to coast, but never held more than a two and a half second advantage over neither Huston nor Cabrera.
In the final individual event of the meet, Armitage won her seventh 100-yard breaststroke event of the season as she recorded a time of 1:03.24 and finished nearly a second and a half ahead of the field. Rice placed second and third in the event.
Additional top-three finishers for FGCU on Sunday included Linda Shaw (Leeds, United Kingdom/ Roundhay HS) and Hamilton, who finished runner-up in the 200-yard freestyle and 100-yard freestyle, respectively.
Sunday's meet marked the first time the two Mid-Major powers have competed in the pool. FGCU is currently ranked No. 3 among Mid-Major programs, while Rice is ranked No. 13, according to CollegeSwimming.com.
Following its dual-meet victory against Rice, the Green and Blue will host No. 19 N.C. State, CCSA-foe Liberty and Central Connecticut State in a quad meet at the FGCU Aquatics Center on Saturday, Jan. 9 at 10 a.m.
Rice
Sophomore Alicia Caldwell won a pair of events in the Rice swim team’s return to action Sunday afternoon at No. 29 ranked Florida Gulf Coast University in Fort Myers, Fla.
Caldwell posted both of the Owls’ individual event wins against a Florida Gulf Coast squad that is ranked among the Top 30 teams in the nation by CollegeSwimming.com. FGCU meanwhile pushed its undefeated dual meet record to 8-0 with a 134-71 win over Rice Sunday in the Owls’ return to competition after the Holiday break.
The meet may have been Rice’s first competition of the New Year, but it was Caldwell’s first for the Owls in the better part of a month. The standout from Sydney, Australia, sat out the team’s previous meet as the Blue & Gray coasted to an easy victory at the UIW Invitational two weeks ago in San Antonio. She was back in the lineup Sunday against the No. 29 Eagles and posted a pair of individual wins.
After swimming the lead leg of Rice’s 200-medley relay that began the meet with a second place finish, Caldwell returned two events later to post a come-from-behind victory in the 200-freestyle. She was in fact in third place at the halfway point before rallying for a winning time of 1:52.26. Caldwell had even less margin for error later in the meet’s 100-free, but again rallied from behind for a winning time of 51.71 that edged second place by a narrow 9 one-hundredths-of-a-second.
Rice true freshman Hanna Huston registered two second place finishes in the rugged distance events with a 5:03.36 in the 500 and a 10:13.53 in the 1,000. Fellow freshman Marie-Claire Schillinger was second in the 100-breaststroke (1:04.68) with junior Shelbi Ragsdale touching in third place at 1:05.58. Sophomore Kaitlyn Swinney placed second in the 200-individual medley 2:06.55.
The Rice swimmers are next in action at UIW on January 12. The Owls also are scheduled to compete at the Texas Grand Prix meet in Austin on Jan. 14-16.
