Feb. 24, 2003

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. - For the second day in a row, the University of Houston diving team dominated at the Conference USA Championships, placing three in the top four leaders on the 3-meter springboard at the IU Natatorium in Indianapolis, Ind.

And for the second consecutive season, senior Yulia Pakhalina asserted herself as the league's greatest diver, winning her 30th consecutive event on the 3-meter board and doing so by more than 200 points in the finals.

The Cougars finished second-day competition with 330 points to stand in fourth place. East Carolina stood atop the team leaderboard with 517 points, followed by Cincinnati (463) and TCU (435). Louisville and Saint Louis rounded out the remainder of the field.

The event wraps up Tuesday with the preliminaries and finals of the 200-yard backstroke, 100-yard freestyle, 200-yard breaststroke, 200-yard butterfly, platform diving, 400-yard freestyle relay and the finals of the 1,650-yard freestyle.

With 712.65 points, Pakhalina set a new C-USA meet record, topping her record from a year ago. The Penza, Russia, qualified for the finals with a score of 697.55 points in the preliminaries, a total that would have been good enough to win in the finals.

But again, Pakhalina was not the only Cougar diver who did well. Redshirt freshman Azul Almazan finished second in the event with 523.55 points, while Veronica Smith placed fourth with 449.95 points.

In the swimming events, five Cougars earned Top 10 finishes with two setting UH season-best times in their respective events. Senior Falon Hopkins placed third in the 100-yard butterfly with a time of 55.99, more than two seconds faster than her times in the preliminaries earlier in the day, and shaved nearly a full second off her previous season best.

Cougar newcomer Kristina DeWitt finished fifth in the 100-yard breaststroke with a time of 1:06.37, nearly two full seconds faster than her best time this season.

Junior Lucile Turpin finished fourth in the 400-yard individual medley with a time of 4:30.89, while freshman Shawn Toliver, competing in her first C-USA Championships earned a seventh-place finish with a time of 1:54.52.

Senior Jessica Blake placed fifth in the 100-yard backstroke with a time of 59.64.

In the relay events, the Cougar 200-yard medley team captured its first C-USA championship. The UH team of Falon Hopkins, Jessica DeWitt, Stacey Williams and Kristin Bay captured the school's first conference swimming title as a member of C-USA, winning by less than half a second ahead of East Carolina.