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Sports

Cougars dominate C-USA diving championships

Traditional domination in postseason as UH takes first place in all diving competitions

By Cole Gardner
The Daily Cougar

The Cougar swimming and diving team competed Wednesday through Saturday at the 2005 Conference USA Women's Swimming and Diving Championship at the Campus Recreation and Wellness Center Natatorium. Most of the team's success came from the diving side of competition as Houston scored a total of 441 points during the four-day meet to finish fifth overall.

C-USA announced Tuesday that junior diver Azul Almazan, sophomore Anna Kiess and former diver Yulia Pakhalina were named to the C-USA All-Decade Team. UH head diving coach Jane Figueiredo was named C-USA Women's Swimming and Diving Coach of the Decade, and on Saturday Figueiredo was awarded C-USA Coach of the Year for the fourth consecutive season.

Figueiredo's acclamations were accentuated by the success of divers Azul Almazan, Rachel Gitelson and Stephanie Mannella. Almazan was honored as the Diver of the Meet, grabbing her second platform diving championship in three seasons and scoring a total of 512.20 points. She also easily won the three-meter springboard, event posting 547.25 points, more than 130 points in front of the next closest score. Gitelson and Mannella each scored 385.50 and 316.95 points respectively in the platform diving competition, finishing in second and third place behind Almazan. Gitelson and Mannella also placed second and third respectively in the three-meter springboard with Gitelson scoring 415.75 and Mannella scoring just two points fewer.

Kiess defended her one-meter springboard title scoring 299.15 points, more than 30 points higher than the next closest competitor. Kiess has not been seen in action since Feb. 5 when she hit her head on a board midway through the three-meter diving competition, sending her to a local hospital. Azul Almazan finished third in the one-meter board with a score of 264.15.

On day one of competition, the 200-yard freestyle relay team of Meagan Wien, Stacey Williams, Jenny Hagen and Kristin Bay swam a time of 1:35.98, the fifth-fastest time in the Cougars' history, finishing fifth in the day's competition.

Szintia Szanto set a new school record of 2:04.47 in the 200-yard individual medley in day two of competition and finished third in the 200-yard butterfly Saturday with a time of 2:04.10. Szanto also had a third-place finish in the 400-yard individual medley, posting a time of 4:27.33.

The Cougars will go the March 11 NCAA Zone D Regional Championships in College Station where they'll hope to qualify to the NCAA Championships on March 17 in West Lafayette, Ind.
 

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