For the second consecutive season, the University of Houston will host the 2005 Conference USA Women's Swimming and Diving Championship and Men's Invitational. The four-day event, which begins on Wednesday afternoon, will be held at the Campus Recreation & Wellness Center Natatorium on the UH campus. A year ago, Houston became the first Conference USA school to host the league's annual meet at an on-site facility after the first two championships were conducted in Indianapolis, Ind. Competing in the meet will be Cincinnati, East Carolina, Houston, Louisville Saint Louis, TCU and Tulane.

Last year, TCU swept the event titles as the Horned Frog men earned the Men’s Invitational championship and the school’s women took home C-USA Women’s Swimming and Diving Championship honors. That was the first time a school’s men’s and women’s tandem won in the same year. To date, no women's team in Conference USA history has won two straight titles.

The meet begins at 1 p.m., Wednesday with the preliminaries of the men's 1-meter diving. The finals begin at 6 p.m. with the 200-yard freestyle relay, 1-meter diving and 800-yard freestyle relay. Swimming action kicks into full gear at 10 a.m., Thursday with the preliminaries for the 500-yard freestyle, 200-yard individual medley and the 50-yard freestyle. The 3-meter women's diving preliminaries will begin around 1 p.m., Thursday with the finals of the 500-yard freestyle, 200-yard individual medley, 50-yard freestyle, women's 3-meter diving and 400-yard medley relay slated to begin at 6 p.m.

Results and recaps from each day's events will be abailable on www.ConferenceUSA.com.

Tickets for the meet are still available. Adult all-session tickets can be purchased for $25, while adult single-day tickets are $10. Students who present valid IDs can buy all-session tickets for $10 and single-day tickets for $5. Tickets will be sold 90 minutes prior to the start of the meet with gates opening an hour before the meet.

CINCINNATI
Junior swimmer Ann Degenstein leads the Bearcats this season, holding the C-USA record in the 100 and 200-yard butterfly event. She currently ranks 12th nationally and holds the school’s fastest time in the 200-fly. Degenstein was named C-USA Swimmer of the Week for the week ending Jan. 30, which marked just the fourth time that a Cincinnati swimmer captured the weekly accolade in the four-year history of C-USA swimming.

Juniors David Gustavsson and Ryan Yearwood are two of UC’s top men’s performers. Gustavsson won last year’s C-USA title in the 200 individual medley, while Yearwood took home the C-USA’s gold in the 50 and 100-yard freestyle events.

Cincinnati head coach Monty Hopkins, who is in his 16th season with the Bearcats, was named 2002 C-USA Coach of the Year.

EAST CAROLINA
This season, the ECU Pirates had seven swimmers qualify for the U.S. Open. Representing the men were Casey Cronin, Kelly Hendrick, Gavin Stark and Josh Barthlow. Representing the women were Diane Parker, Holly Williams and Kate Gordon.

Leading the Pirates for the men are freshman Josh Barthlow, who broke a 10-year-old school record in the 200-yard backstroke (1:48.91) and in the 100-yard backstroke (49.81) and classmate and diver Ryan Hunt, who broke the school record in three-meter diving competition, scoring 483.80 points.

Senior Diane Parker defends her two-year-old 200-yard individual medley C-USA title as well as her 100-yard breastroke title. Parker also broke a 14-year-old school record in the 200-yard breaststroke (2:17.42) at the Nike Cup in Chapel Hill, N.C.

HOUSTON
In 2004, the Cougars finished third at the meet, the best finish by a UH squad since 1985-86. At that meet, the Cougar divers dominated the postseason awards for the third consecutive season. Azul Almazan was named the Diver of the Meet, while Anna Kiess was honored as the Freshman Diver of the Year. In addition, diving head coach Jane Figueiredo was named the Diving Coach of the Year.

Almazan, Kiess and Figueiredo as well as diving teammates junior Stephanie Mannella and sophomore Rachel Gitelson will be in action this week.

On the swimming side, senior captain Kristin Bay and sophomore Szintia Szanto should vie for championships. Bay owns the team's two fastest times in the 50-yard freestyle, 100-yard freestyle and 100-yard backstroke. Szanto already has recorded some of the school's all-time fastest times in four different events and has tallied the team's four fastest times in the 100- and 200-yard butterfly and 200- and 400-yard individual medley. Freshman Marit Bloemer, who joined the Cougars at the semester break, already has posted UH season-best times in the 500- and 1,000-yard freestyle events.

LOUISVILLE
Louisville returns two C-USA champions in Kleber Ihara, who returns to defend his 200-fly win of a year ago, and sophomore Heather Meng. Meng will seek to defend her win in the 200-yard breaststroke.

U of L had its last meet in Crawford Pool and will compete next year in the Ralph Wright Natatorium, which is scheduled for completion this summer. Diving coach Mike Zehnder has won Diving Coach of the Meet in 2002 and in 2001 in the Midwest Independent Championships.

U of L is a young, rebuilding team with just one senior on the men's team and two on the women's team as second year head coach Arthur Albiero rebuilds the Cardinal aquatic program.

SAINT LOUIS
The Billiken women achieved the program's first national ranking this season as CollegeSwimming.com recognized Saint Louis among the country's top mid-major programs. The women opened the season on the list and have sustained their position among the top 25 throughout the season.

Leading the Bills is senior Megan Capellupo, who is wrapping up her final season at SLU. Her school record time in the 200-yard breaststroke was the lowest in C-USA this season and made her an NCAA provisional qualifier. Adding a first place finish in the 200 IM against Western Illinois, she earned C-USA Swimmer of the Week honors for the period ending Jan. 16. Capellupo also set records in the 100 breast and 200 back this season, giving her a total of four school-record times in her career. She is also part of three record-holding relay teams.

While the men's 12-6 record has been overshadowed by the women's team's perfect mark, the Billikens' 12 matches the best total in more than 20 years. Senior diver Bobby Wolf has been the highlight of the season, becoming the first male diver at SLU to qualify for NCAA Zones. Junior Chris Johansen has emerged late in the season, dominating the distance free events over the last few weeks of the season.

TCU
The Horned Frogs will look to win their second straight C-USA Championship/Invitational titles this weekend in Houston. The men's team will be going for an unprecedented fourth straight title, while the women's squad will be looking to earn back-to-back championships. No women's team in Conference USA history has won two straight titles.

The Frogs combined to finish with a 18-5 dual record this season. The highlight of the season was on Jan. 21 when TCU defeated LSU at the University Recreation Center. TCU headed into the final event, the 200-freestyle relay, needing to win to beat the SEC-foe, and they did just that. The women's squad reached 10 wins for the fourth straight year as they finished with a 11-2 record, while the men's team ended with a 7-3 mark.

Junior Kelly McCain and sophomore Erica Tate both broke school records this season for the Frogs. McCain has topped his school record in the 1-meter diving (6 dives) twice this season. Heading into this season, the junior had 327.75 points in the event. This season, he has improved on his score by nearly 10 points with a mark of 336.60. Meanwhile, Tate broke a 14-year old school record in December at the UT Invite. The sophomore finished the 100-butterfly with a time of 55.41 seconds to top Katie Tredennick's previous best of 56.19.

TULANE
Tulane’s women posted a 16-3 overall record in just its second season back as a varsity program. Last year, the Green Wave went 13-2 in dual meet action, posted a fifth-place finish in Conference USA, had three swimmers earn All C-USA honors, and another was named C-USA Freshman Swimmer of the Year and earned a spot in the 2004 Summer Olympics.

Sophomore Linda McEachrane added to her list of Tulane firsts when she was named National Collegiate Swimmer of the Week by CollegeSwimming.com. on Dec. 8. A native of Port of Spain, Trinidad, McEachrane became the first Green Wave swimmer to win a Conference USA title in 2004, and during the summer, became the first Tulane student-athlete in any sport to earn a spot in the Olympics during her five-year eligibility window.