The Cougars were swept away by the Hurricanes on Friday in their first loss of the season.
The Hurricanes defeated UH 136.5-103.5 in a dual meet.
“We’re just trying to swim through some really tired legs and bodies right now,” head coach Augie Busch said.
“We’ve been training really hard so as long as our effort and our attitude is there, that’s all I can ask for.”
UH was able to stand its ground during the first half as Heather Winn took first place in the 1,000-yard freestyle (10:18.56) and Reka Kovacs in the 200-yard individual medley, good for an NCAA B cut time in 2:07.47.
The diving events brought UH success as junior Julia Lonnegren took first in the 1-meter dive and second in the 3-meter, while freshman Natasha Burgess took third and fourth places.
“I have freshmen,” diving coach Jane Figueiredo said. “So the reality is we need to be a lot better. I wanted them to know this was going to be much tougher.
“When you dive against Miami, they are the real deal.”
The Hurricanes pulled ahead in the second half of the meet.
The Cougars won with Moira Fraser, Kim Eeson, Colleen Donovan and Maddie Clark finishing the 400-yard free relay in 3 minutes, 34 seconds.
“We have to bounce back from it,” Winn said. “We can’t always just go into a meet expecting to win.
“We were ready but there are points that we still need to work on.”
The Cougars are up against Arkansas, Boise State, Nebraska and host-school Rice on Friday.
“It’s going to be a tough meet,” Winn said. “But hopefully we can all pull it together and pull out a good meet against Rice because they’re our biggest rival.”
