Sports

Divers propel UH to third in C-USA

by Stuart H. Clements

The Daily Cougar

The Houston swimming and diving team finished third in the 2004 Conference USA Championships -- the team's highest finish ever.

The C-USA title went to Texas Christian with 772 points and East Carolina tallied 578 points for second place. UH earned 538 points to take the third spot.

Cincinnati followed in fourth with 520 points, with Tulane, Louisville and Saint Louis filling in the bottom three spots with scores of 486, 347 and 292, respectively.

On Saturday freshman Szintia Szanto and senior co-captain Lucile Turpin led the Cougar swimming assault.

Szanto swam the 200-yard butterfly in two minutes, 4.24 seconds to take the fourth spot, while Turpin took the same finish in the 1,650-yard freestyle in 17:17.65.

Freshman Haley Menard earned fourth-place in the 200-yard freestyle Friday to lead the Cougars, swimming the finals in that event in 1:52.48, two seconds faster than her preliminary time on the same day.

Szanto led the pace for the Cougars on Thursday, the first day of the Championships, capturing second place in the 200-yard individual medley, swimming only .05 seconds slower than the UH record in that event with a time of 2:04.70.

The Cougars finished Thursday's finals in second place before dropping a spot on Friday. The Cougars' 200-yard freestyle relay aided with the superior start from the gate with a third-place finish in 1:35.56.

Sophomore Stacey Williams, Menard, senior Laura Starr and junior Kristin Bay, the medley relay team, finished in 1:35.56, the second-fastest time in school history.

Sophomore Azul Almazan led off Thursday, winning the 3-meter springboard event scoring 555.40 points. Freshman Anna Kiess finished just behind her teammate with 518.65 points.

The duo traded spots Friday. Kiess took the top prize in the 1-meter event with 282.70 points, and Almazan trailed in second with 280.25 points.

The Cougars captured the top four finishes in the event, starting with Kiess in first place with 514.70, followed by Almazan, freshman Rachel Gitelson and sophomore Stephanie Mannella.

Almazan was honored as C-USA Diver of the Meet, while Kiess picked up Freshman Diver of the Year.

Cougar diving coach Jane Figueiredo was awarded C-USA Diving Coach of the Year.

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