Houston hosted the Conference USA Swimming and Diving Championships for the fifth consecutive year last week at the Campus Recreation and Wellness Center Natatorium, where the Cougars finished fourth overall and claimed 11 medals.
Cougar diving won six medals through the week, despite being without junior redshirt diver Anastasia Pozdniakovia, who is on an Olympic waiver. Two of those medals were clinched Saturday when freshman diver Lacey Truelove earned gold and senior diver Ginni Van Katwijk won silver in the women’s platform diving competition.
"I went out there and did my best and accomplished my goal," Truelove said. "I just stayed ahead in the game, tried to make the corrections my coach gave me and just rolled with that. It’s definitely a good lead up to (the NCAA Zone D Diving Meet)."
Truelove scored 282.00 in five rounds while teammate Katwijk earned 255.05.
"I’m glad I wrestled my way through here," Katwijk said. "It was really hard, and I think all of us did really good."
Three UH divers, including freshman diver Courtney Forcucci, finished in the top four of the platform event.
Forcucci was also voted C-USA Diver of the Meet after winning the 1-meter event and taking silver in the 3-meter.
UH’s head diving coach Jane Figueiredo was voted C-USA Diving Coach of the Year, her sixth consecutive.
"Jane Figueiredo is known probably to be one of the top diving coaches of the world," head swimming coach Mark Taylor said.
The swimmers came away with two medals Saturday. Junior swimmer Andrea Pa’lmai finished third in the 200-yard backstroke, coming back from an early deficit to win bronze.
Junior swimmer Sasha Schwendenwein placed second in the women’s 200-yard butterfly. She finished in 2:01.23, coming away with silver and just eight-tenths of a second away from gold.
"I’m very pleased with the way they’ve performed," Taylor said. "Almost 95 percent of the athletes performed best times throughout the meet, and I think they’re very happy with their performances also."
Houston finished fourth in C-USA (431.0) while Southern Methodist (926.0) won the 2008 conference champions, followed by Rice and East Carolina.
Friday was another big day for Cougar divers who took first, second and third in the women’s 1-meter diving.
Forcucci was crowned conference champion in the event with a final score of 287.25. In round three, she was awarded scores of 7, 7, 6.5, 7 and 6.5.
"I’m really happy with how I did," Forcucci said. "I just want to build upon this. (It’s a) good way to start off my freshman year. We train really hard."
Katwijk came in second with 284.30 points followed by Truelove who scored 279.85, completing the sweep.
All three divers’ scores were NCAA provisional marks, automatically qualifying them for the NCAA diving meet.
"It was great to have a nice showing today, but the NCAA (championship) is our ultimate goal," diving coach Figueiredo said in a release. "Our goal every year is to make it to the NCAA (championship), and this is our last meet in preparation for the NCAA qualifiers in two weeks."
In the women’s 400-yard individual medley, junior Andrea Pa’lmai set a new school record swimming 16 laps in 4:21.67. Pa’lmai finished third, winning bronze.
Schwendenwein also won a bronze medal, finishing the women’s 200-yard freestyle in 1:47.55.
In Thursday’s meet, the Cougars won their first medal of the tournament. In the women’s 3-meter diving, Forcucci finished second with a final score of 314.8. She finished behind SMU’s Britney Yancey, who scored straight 7’s in the final round to clinch the gold.
Houston finished third in the women’s 400-yard medley relay, finishing behind SMU and Rice. The team finished with a time of 3:51.74, earning its first relay medal of the tournament.
The Cougars’ performances brought them up to fourth place in the overall scoring, overcoming Marshall in conference standings.
On Wednesday, the Cougars struggled to get the week started and were disqualified in the women’s 200-yard medley relay. SMU was also disqualified for early jumps, despite finishing first. Rice went on to get the gold.
The Cougars finished fourth in the women’s 800-yard freestyle relay led by Pa’lmai and Schwendenwein along with freshmen Paige Bissett and Andrea Kells.
"Our team is very young and consists mostly of freshmen and sophomores," Taylor said. "We had good leadership this year from our junior class (and) we only have a couple seniors on the team. You know we couldn’t be happier."
The NCAA Zone D Diving Meet is March 14-16 at the UH CRWC Natatorium. The NCAA Championship will be March 20-22 in Columbus, Ohio.
