UH swimmers to face successful
Aggie team
By Stuart H. Clements
Daily Cougar Staff
The Houston swimming and diving team will
travel to College Station on Friday to challenge Texas A&M in a dual
meet.
Pin Lim/The Daily Cougar
Junior Falon Hopkins prepares
to swim the butterfly. Hopkins has been a leader for the swimming and diving
team this year.
The Aggies are on a roll these days after
winning their fifth consecutive dual meet against Rice on Saturday, 151-104.
A&M has a young team, but its members
know how to get the job done. Of the eight individual event wins during
the team's
dual meet against the Owls, seniors won
two, sophomores won one and freshmen won five.
In addition to the solo events, the Aggies
managed to win the 400-yard medley relay, which consists of senior Clara
Ho and
freshmen Courtney Patterson, Danielle
Townsend and Kelsey Savage.
Ho is an absolute machine in the butterfly.
She took first in the 100-yard butterfly, finishing in 57.61 seconds, and
won the
200-yard butterfly with a time of 2 minutes,
04.32 seconds.
UH sophomores Lucile Turpin and Corrie
Phares and senior Linda Osborne will have their hands full dominating in
the
butterfly events, with their recent times
being just a few seconds slower than Ho's.
Ho, Townsend and freshman Ashley Roark
captured six of A&M's victories. Roark has been dominating all month.
She won
the 100-yard backstroke in 58.20 and took
first in the 200-yard individual medley with a time of 2:06.67.
Townsend won the freestyle sprints, both
the 50-yard in 24.28 and the 100-yard in 52.22.
Freshman Christina Thompson won the 200-yard
backstroke in 2:05.62 to join the other freshman stars.
Another big factor that helped A&M
beat Rice was the trio of Roark, Patterson and Thompson. They all completed
the
100-yard backstroke in times that were
less than a second apart.
Patterson followed Roark at 58.83, and
Thompson followed Patterson at 59.15 to claim second and third, respectively.
These
triplets scored 16 points in just this
event to help the Aggies win.
Later in the meet, Roark, Patterson and
Thompson traded places for another 16 points in the 200-yard backstroke.
Roark and
Patterson followed Thompson with respective
times of 2:05.94 and 2:08.04.
Although the swimming events may be tight,
the Aggie divers will be taught a lesson on the diving board.
Sophomore Yulia Pakhalina should lead divers
sophomore Veronica Smith and freshman Lindsay Harvey to success in all
diving events.
The meet, which was to begin at 4 p.m.,
has been moved to 3:30 p.m., and will be both teams' final meet of the
regular
season.
The Aggies currently stand at 7-4 and the
Cougars are 2-8, and will be looking for a big win to end the season on
a good
note.
The Cougars are hoping to be able to punish
these toddlers in fine fashion.
