Marshall University Athletics
Marshall University
Vanderbilt
Vanderbilt Edges Swimming; Duo Qualifies for NCAA Diving Zones
1/29/2010 12:00:00 AM | Women's Swimming and Diving
Jan. 29, 2010
HUNTINGTON, W.Va.- Vanderbilt slid past an impressive effort by the Marshall University swimming and diving team, as the Herd fell 120-118 Friday night.
The evening was highlighted by a slew of impressive performances - two coming from divers Haley Holmquist and Rachel Hannum. Both Holmquist and Hannum qualified for the NCAA Diving Zones with scores that top the qualifying total of 280 points.
Holmquist took a first-place finish in the 3-meter diving event with a career-best score of 285.83. The score is the third-best performance in school history and smashes Holmquist's previous personal-best by 29 points.
Also chalking up a career-best is Hannum, who finished the 3-meter dive with a score of 281.40. Hannum improved on her former personal-high by 37 points.
"Without a coach early on our divers did a lot of supporting for each other," said head coach Leonard Kraus. "Jim Zagaria came in and they made a quick leap there. They broke things down and increased their difficulty on a lot of their dives and it paid off tonight."
In 1-meter diving, Hannum recorded her second career-best of the night with a score of 252.90 to take first place. In second was Lauren Rone, who also had a personal-best with 249.15 points.
"Seeing our divers continue to make improvements is really nice," said Kraus. "We have one more meet and I look for Lauren and Maribeth [Smith] to push for their NCAA Zone cuts there. We are going to go into conference with four extremely strong divers."
Senior Briana Burns captured first-place finishes in the 50-meter freestyle (24.71) and 100-meter freestyle (54.32). Liz Greenway posted a career-best time of 10:43.27 in the 1000-meter freestyle, in a second-place finish.
In the final event of the evening, the 400-meter freestyle relay team of Greenway, Jenny Johnsson, Jenae Moreno and Arlie Rykosky put up a first-place time of 3:38.92.
Next up for MU is James Madison on Feb. 6. The Herd will face the Dukes in Harrisonburg, Va., at 2 p.m.
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