Houston Picks Up 21 Podium Finishes, Falling Short at Arkansas

HOUSTON – The University of Houston Swimming & Diving team posted 21 podium finishes, including a pair of first-place finishes, falling short in a 193-107 loss to (rv) Arkansas Friday evening at HPER Natatorium.

"I'm very happy with our performance today," said Head Coach Ryan Wochomurka. "We raced extremely hard on the road against a very good Arkansas, after a lay-off since November. I certainly hate losing, but the point total doesn't tell the whole story of our performance today. We had multiple individuals put up season-best and lifetime-best performances. That is what we want to see five weeks out of conference championships. We have intentionally scheduled tough meets for this three-week stretch so we will be battle tested when it matters most during the last week of February".

HOW IT HAPPENED

The Cougars racked up 20 top-three finishes, including a pair of first place finishes in the 100 backstroke by Laura Laderoute (55.03) and Ioanna Sacha in the 200 backstroke (2:00.19).
Sophomore transfer Ioanna Sacha made her Houston debut by posting the seventh-fastest time in program history in the 200 backstroke. The Cougars swept the event with Laderoute finishing second (2:01.65) and Monique Rae in third (2:02.22).
Houston closed out the meet with second and third-place finishes in the 400 Freestyle Relay, as well as a second-place finish in the opening event of the day, the 200 Medley Relay.
Several Cougars posted lifetime best, including Shayla Erickson who finished third in the 1000 Freestyle at 10:21.46.
On the boards Katie Deininger led the Cougars in the 1-Meter, finishing in fourth-place with 261.83 points. In the 3-Meter Makayla Wallar led Houston with a fifth-place finish with 278.85 points.

HOUSTON PODIUM FINISHES

200 Medley Relay
2. Laura Laderoute, Peyton Kondis, Katie Higgins, Mykenzie Leehy – 1:42.38

1000 Freestyle
3. Shayla Erickson – 10:21.46

200 Freestyle
2. Zarena Brown – 1:50.41

100 Backstroke
1. Laura Laderoute – 55.03
2. Ioanna Sacha – 56.23

100 Breaststroke
2. Peyton Kondis – 1:03.31
3. Gaby Jimenez – 1:04.14

200 Butterfly
Rebecca Brandt – 2:03.80
Morgan Rosas – 2:05.72

50 Freestyle
2. Zarena Brown – 22.96
3. Mykenzie Leehy – 24.10

100 Freestyle
Zarena Brown – 51.18

200 Backstroke
1. Ioanna Sacha – 2:00.19
2. Laura Laderoute – 2:01.65
3. Monique Rae – 2:02.22

200 Breaststroke
2. Gaby Jimenez – 2:19.53

500 Freestyle
Samantha Medlin – 5:01.77

100 Butterfly
Katie Higgins – 57.06

200 IM
3. Eleanna Koutsouveli – 2:06.08

400 Freestyle Relay
2. Mykenzie Leehy, Laura Laderoute, Zarena Brown, Kylie Andrews – 3:26.33
3. Julie Gibson, Katie Power, Rachel Hicks, Samantha Medlin

UP NEXT
Houston will continue its tour of the SEC when its faces No. 11 Texas A&M and Vanderbilt on Jan. 26 in College Station, before heading to Baton Rouge to face LSU and Rice on Feb. 1-2.

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