Marshall University Athletics
Herd Swimming and Diving Set for C-USA Championships
2/24/2009 12:00:00 AM | Women's Swimming and Diving
Feb. 24, 2009
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 2009 Conference USA Women's Swimming and Diving Championships.
The meet begins with preliminaries in the one-meter dive at 3 p.m. (EST), Wednesday at the University of Houston Campus Recreation & Wellness Center Natatorium. Finals will begin at 6 p.m. (EST) 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. every 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, North Dakota and Northern Colorado.
Marshall, competing under eighth-year head coach Leonard Kraus, finished fifth a year ago and looks to improve their finish in 2009. Marshall finished the regular season with a 5-5 record.
"We've been work toward this meet all season," Marshall head coach Leonard Kraus said. "We've been working for this since school started. We busted our tails to get ready for this weekend and I feel like things are setting up nicely".
This season, Marshall is led by senior diver Siobhan Schuurman and junior swimmer Jenny Johnsson.
The Herd is looking for Schuurman to continue to her dual meet form where she qualified for the NCAA Zone Championship for a second straight season with a score of 270.53 in the one-meter dive against Fairmont State.
In the pool, Johnsson has been one of the Herd's most versatile performers for the second straight season. 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 C-USA in both 100 and 200 fly.
SMU comes into the meet as the three-time defending champions, while Rice and East Carolina each finished second in the standings during the last two years.
"It should be really exciting this year because we've added another new squad in North Dakota," Kraus said. "The teams that were good are still good, but the conference is just a little deeper. SMU is once again in the top ten and is really deep as usual. We'll have to work hard and battle this week."
Players Mentioned
