Feb. 26, 2008

HOUSTON - The Marshall swimming and diving team will look to conclude its regular season with a strong finish this week as it visits Houston for the 2008 Conference USA Women's Swimming and Diving Championship.

The meet begins at 3 p.m., Feb. 27 at the University of Houston Campus Recreation & Wellness Center Natatorium with the preliminaries. Finals will begin at 6 p.m. and will include the women's 200-yard medley relay and 800-yard freestyle relay.

The final three days of the four-day meet features swimming preliminaries beginning at 10 a.m., each day. Diving preliminaries are slated to start at 1 p.m., with the finals for all events beginning at 6 p.m., each day.

In addition to the Herd, the women's side of the meet features C-USA rivals East Carolina, Houston, Rice and SMU as well as Cal State Bakersfield, Northern Colorado.

Marshall, competing under seventh-year head coach Leonard Kraus, finished fifth a year ago and looks to improve their finish in 2008. Marshall finished the regular season with a 4-6 record.

"We have to swim the mornings like we traditionally swim the nights," Kraus said. "We must put it all together in the prelims so we can put ourselves in scoring positions. We also have to limit mistakes and score in all five relays to give ourselves a chance. Our girls are ready and are excited to get to the meet and perform well."

This season, Marshall is led by seniors Michaela Sceli and Lauren Goodwin.

Sceli has posted school record times in the 100 and 200 breaststroke events.. The LaSalle, Ontario, Canada, native is just seconds from provisionally qualifying for the 2008 NCAA Championships with her time of 1:04.17 in the 100-yard breast. Goodwin set a school in the 400-yard IM with a time 4:31.25 and currently ranks seventh in C-USA in the event.

Sophomore Jenny Johnnson has emerged as one of the Herd's most versatile performers in her first season with the team. The Osby, Sweden, native leads all Marshall swimmers in the 1000-yard freestyle and 200-yard backstroke. Junior Kayla Truswell is the squad's top flyer and ranks in the top 10 in both 100 and 200 fly.

On the diving side, the Herd is looking for junior Siobhan Schuurman to return to her early season form when she qualified for the NCAA Zone Championship with a score of 280.72 in the one-meter dive against Radford.

SMU comes into the meet as the two-time defending champions, while Rice and East Carolina each finished second in the standings during the last two years.

"As in the past, SMU is the team to beat, they are ranked No. 12 right now and I think they are better than that," Kraus said. " ECU is as good as they have been in the last four years, and Houston has a handfull of girls that are as good as anyone in the conference plus their divers are great. Rice always has good swimmers and they do a tremendous job on the relays."