March 2, 2008

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HOUSTON - The Marshall swimming and diving team's season came to an end Saturday night with a fifth place finish at the Conference USA Championships at the University of Houston.

The Herd finished the meet with a team score of 365, just 19 points behind their record total from 2007. Marshall was just 66 points behind fourth place Houston and 90 points ahead of sixth-place Northern Colorado.

"I was very proud of the way our kids performed overall," Marshall head coach Leonard Kraus said. "We set five new school records and got a lot faster. The league added two new teams this year and you could definitely tell that the competition was much deeper.

After winning the 100-yard breaststroke title on Friday, senior Michaela Sceli fell just short in her attempt to sweep the breast events. Sceli finished third-place in the 200-yard breaststroke, finishing in a time of 2:16.28.

Sophomore Jenny Johnnson set her second school record of the meet with a 2:06.51 in the 200-yard backstroke

Marshall also set a new school record in the 400-yard freestyle relay as Kyla Jungclaus, Jenae Moreno, Lauren Fairbanks and Johnnson teamed up to swim a time of 3:33.98.

The Marshall divers combined to take fifth through eighth-place in the platform diving event. Siobhan Schuurman led the way for the Herd divers once again, breaking her own school record in the platform with a final score of 145.

"This was a nice ending to the season," Kraus said. "We made improvements, fell a little short this year. We'll get back to work this off-season and strive to improve for next year."