East Carolina University
Conference USA Championships
ECU Moves Up At C-USA Championship Meet
February 27, 2010 | Swimming & Diving
Feb. 26, 2010
HOUSTON - The third day of the 2010 Conference USA Swimming & Diving Championship and Invitational wrapped up late Friday night at the CRWC Natatorium on the University of Houston campus with both the East Carolina men and women's teams moving up one spot each in the standings.
The ladies surpassed Houston to move into third-place with 397 points and enter the final day of competition on Saturday just eight points behind second-place Rice (405). SMU (503) leads the women's field by 98 points over its nearest competitor. Houston (364.50) fell to fourth place while Tulane (187) and Marshall (125) round out the conference schools.
In the invitational scoring, North Dakota has 222.50 points, followed by Cal State Bakersfield (209) and Northern Colorado (134).
The Pirates 200-yard freestyle relay team of Jenna Stewart, Kelsey Brosi, Kylie Francis and Natalia Favoreto posted an NCAA `B' cut time of the 1:32.54 on its way to a third-place finish.
As an individual, Favoreto placed third in the 100-yard breaststroke with a time of 1:03.24 to earn all-conference honors.
Senior Rachel Blue also posted an NCAA `B' cut in the 200-yard freestyle (1:49.19) and earned a second-place finish.
Although they didn't finish among the top three in their events, each of the Pirate divers scored valuable points Saturday. Sophomore Meghan Coyne placed sixth in the one-meter springboard finals with a score of 270.90. Freshman Kirstie Russell placed 10th with a score of 234.00 on the one-meter springboard semifinals.
The men's squad moved out of the cellar into fourth place of the C-USA Invitational meet. SMU leads the event after day three with 582 points, followed by Hawaii with 534 points. Cal State Bakersfield sits in third with 396 points, while East Carolina (312) and North Dakota (218) hold on to fourth and fifth respectively.
Senior Jeffrey Miller earned all-conference accolades with a third-place finish in the 400-yard IM (4:04.04), while junior Thiago Cavalcanti recorded his second all-conference performance of the meet with a second-place finish in the 200-yard freestyle (1:38.62).
Sophomore Travis Stauder set an ECU varsity record in the 100-yard breaststroke by registering an NCAA `B' cut time of 54.72 and collected all-conference accolades with a second-place finish.
Freshman diver Tyler Dunsmore finished fifth in the three-meter springboard final with a score of 263.10 and was a mere three points out of fourth-place.
The meet resumes at 11 a.m., Saturday with the preliminaries of the 200-yard backstroke, 100-yard freestyle, 200-yard breaststroke, 200-yard butterfly and 1650-yard freestyle. The men and women's platform diving preliminaries will begin around 2 p.m. The finals for those events are slated to begin around 7 p.m.
