Already in the midst of a strong season, three members of the UH swimming and diving team have added additional accolades.
Seniors Reka Kovacs and Julia Lonnegren join sophomore Natasha Burgess as athletes who have had the honor of being named Conference-USA’s swimmer and diver of the week. Burgess took home the title of C-USA’s top diver for the week of Oct. 16. Kovacs and Lonnegren received their accolades for the week of Nov. 20. For Lonnegren, this is the eighth award of her UH career and the first of the season. It is the second for Kovacs and her first of the season.
One of the shining moments of the season has been UH’s strong fifth place finish in the Phill Hansel Invitational it hosted from Nov. 15 to the 17. Twenty personal best times and two school records were set during the three-day tournament that left UH ahead of ten other schools.
“This was a great weekend for our team,” said head coach Augie Busch on the results of the Invitational. “There were multiple personal bests achieved. I’m watching our upperclassmen really start to respond to our style of training and our freshmen are making immediate impacts, which is what I hoped for.”
The tournament doubled as an accidental Senior Day for seniors Kimmy Ballo, Moira Fraser, Reka Kovacs, Julia Lonnegren and Holli Pisarski.
“We feel like we’re in a great place moving forward into the second half of the season. Looking at last year’s results, we were significantly better this weekend than we were at conference last year,” said Busch. “That’s a tremendously positive sign. Even more encouraging is the way our women continue to embrace and understand what ‘team’ is all about. Our culture is improving all the time and, as a coach, that’s incredibly satisfying to see.”
The season restarts Jan. 2 in Hawaii for a training trip before returning to Texas to compete against instate foes North Texas and Southern Methodist University. The C-USA Championships will be held at the Campus Recreation and Wellness Center Natatorium starting on Feb. 20 to 23.
