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Rice Swimming: Marta Cano-Minarro surges toward success

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The Rice swimming season was cut short. Still, the impression Marta Cano-Minarro made in a shortened campaign made waves at South Main.

Marta Cano-Minarro burst onto the Rice Swimming scene as a freshman in 2018. Her debut season was spectacular. She set the school record in the 200 IM. She won multiple CSCAA and C-USA Championships and was the anchor in three program-record-setting relay teams.

Her rapid ascent wasn’t unexpected. Prior to her arrival at Rice, Cano-Minarro competed in the FINA Junior World Swimming Championships where she finished Top 15 in the 200 Free. She also swam in the European Games, finishing sixth in the 200 Free.

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Rice swimming coach Set Huston said athletes like her “make the coach look pretty good”. He gave all the credit to Cano-Minnaro. Hutson cited her relentless pursuit to better herself and a work ethic commensurate with her own expectations, which are lofty.

Huston said Cano-Minarro “has big goals”, some of which she was able to achieve this past season. She won the 200 IM and 200 Free at the Conference USA Championships where she was named Co-Swimmer of the Meet. Soon after the season would end and she would be dubbed Conference-USA’s Co-Swimmer of the Year.

Cano-Minarro led the Owls in points at the conference championship, placing in the top three in seven different events, including four relays. Along the way, she set several personal bests as she continues to improve.

If the first two years of her collegiate career offer any indication, the best of Cano-Minarro could still be to come. That’s something that she and Rice swimming eagerly look forward to. The sooner she can get back in the pool, the sooner the rest of the world will see.

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Rice Swimming: Next wave of swimmers ready to step up

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The next wave of Rice swimming contributors are ready to rise to the occasion. Coach New opportunities await several underclassmen with new roles opening next season.

Rice swimming will lose a strong core of senior leaders when they return to the pool next season. As valuable as those seniors were in action, part of their legacy will be the impact they made on those to follow. The Owls have a host of up-and-coming swimmers ready to fill their shoes, several of which made splashes of their own this season.

Many freshmen experience an adjustment period when they first arrive on campus. The rigors of the academic load alongside the athletic requirements make it challenging to expect many newcomers to bear too much of the load too quickly. But there are always a few who earn the right for a bigger role through their own efforts.

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One such rising underclassmen was Maddie Howe. The true freshman wasn’t feeling well during the Conference USA Championship. Even though she was under the weather, she snuck into the finals for the 100-Fly.

Howe swam from the eighth and final lane in the championship swim. Not only she Howe medal, she won the event from the outermost lane, a rarity in swimming and a testament to Howe’s grit and perseverance.

Howe is one of several swimmers who could see her role increase in the near future. Becca Evans put together a strong sophomore campaign. Freshmen like  Shannon Campbell and Sini Koivu had strong finishes as the C-USA Championship. C-USA Co-Swimmer of the Year Marta Cano-Minarro was stellar.

And that doesn’t account for a crop of junior swimmers who have already ascended into crucial roles.

Head coach Seth Huston is excited to get back in the pool and let his swimmers get to work. “We’ll just talk about opportunity,” he said. “What opportunities are presenting themselves in your new role with one more year under your belt?” With that challenge presented, it will be up to each individual to work and earn their chance to broaden their role.

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Rice Swimming says goodbye to faithful senior class

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The Rice Swimming senior class had their careers ended earlier than they would have hoped, but they still managed some special moments in the pool.

Every so often a phenomenal young athlete steps on campus and turns heads. The once-in-a-lifetime type talent that wows everyone from the very start. For most members of the Rice swimming team, things don’t start that way. It’s a process, one that when followed to completion, leaves a satisfying reward for the swimmer and the program.

The culmination of years of focus is what made this senior class so special. As head coach Seth Huston described it, “It was just about them growing up.”

That development process shined through in their work ethic both in and out of the pool. “In a lot of ways they trained and raced better than they had throughout their career,” Huston said. “Honestly, they were their best [version of themselves].”

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It was that buy in and commitment to work that made them special. Sarah Nowaski, Harper Gillentine, Kate Nezelek and Claire Therien left their mark on Rice swimming in more ways than one.

In the water, these seniors were solid. The quarter was well decorated at the C-USA Championships alone. Nowaski placed third in the 400 IM. Gillentine was part of the 200 Free Relay team that finished second. Nezelek finished second in the 50 Free, 100 Free, 200 Free Relay and 400 Free. She also placed third in the 400 Medley Relay.

Therien’s story combines success with sweetness. The senior had never won an event entering in her career entering the final day of the Conference USA Championship. Then she got in the pool and swam the best race of her Rice career.

“She just got in there and kind of swam her race and came out on top in the end,” Huston said with pride. Therien’s moment encapsulated a career of hard work and served as the perfect summary of this senior class.

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Rice Swimming: The last Owls standing this spring

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Rice swimming was the last of the Owls’ teams to compete this spring, ending their season with a top five finish at a truncated CSCAA National College Invitational.

On a Tuesday evening in March Rice swimming flew from Houston to Cleveland to compete in the CSCAA National College Invitational. Coronavirus concerns had put some on edge, but the team hadn’t fully come to terms with the breadth and the pace of the problem at that time.

Still, the meet began as scheduled on Thursday, March 12. Although swimmers were in and out of the water as usual, the air in the Busbey Natatorium was flat. Rice swimming head coach Set Huston characterized the atmosphere as “distracted”, something he doesn’t ever really associated with his team.

To the contrary, Huston called the continued maturity of his team the defining achievement of the Owls’ season. He cited the teams’ resiliency through adversity and their ability to compete “anytime, anywhere, any place”. That growing resolve was put on display during the invitational.

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The swimmers were in the middle of their preliminary events when conferences around the country began canceling their basketball championships. The NBA had been shut down the night prior. Still, they swam on. Some teams pulled out between prelims and finals. As long as city of Cleveland and the hosting school Cleveland State deemed it permissible to compete, the Owls would press on.

As the final swims were beginning that night, teams were notified this would be the last day of the invitational. It too, like all other major sporting events around the world, had been tabled by the coronavirus pandemic.

Even with the world coming to a halt around them, Rice swimming competed to the very end. The Owls’ finished fifth place out of 33 teams, taking home silver medals in the 50-yard freestyle swam by Kate Nezelek and the team sprint relay. Rice has now placed in the top five in every appearance at the invitation, starting with the inaugural 2014 meet which the Owls won.

There were several impressive results along the way. Huston is particularly proud of his team’s sweep at the Dual-A-Palooza. A two-day event in which Rice topped Denver, Tulane and eventual C-USA Champion FIU. By and large, it was a successful season, and one that lasted longer than most every other collegiate season around the country.

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Rice Basketball: Owls adapting to the world of the Transfer Portal

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Rice basketball has been gutted by the Transfer Portal this offseason. For better or worse, the Owls are adapting to a new normal in college basketball.

No sooner had the final installment of an offseason series on Rice basketball been published than did everything change for head coach Scott Pera and the Owls. Josh Parrish entered the Transfer Portal. Then Trey Murphy III followed. Then Drew Peterson tacked his name onto the list. In the span of a week a promising upcoming season was plunged into uncertainty.

“I’m not sure all of this stuff is good for the game,” Pera said a few weeks later after he’d found the replacement for those transfers and the outgoing senior class. He acknowledged that he wishes the best for those leaving Houston, but wishes there were another way. In his eyes, the grass isn’t always greener.

And it’s not going to get easier. The NCAA is discussing doing away with the rule that mandates a one-year penalty for all transferring players. Under the proposed guidelines, all athletes would be granted immediate eligibility across all sports. Could this tip the balance of power even further away from smaller schools like Rice? Pera thinks so.

If the rule passes, Pera thinks schools like Rice “become like the minor leagues”, grooming talent for the elite programs.

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After dealing with as much adversity as he has, it’s easy to see how Pera came to hold that position. Many believe his words of caution, fearing things could get even worse on the transfer front. But as of this writing, it’s already a bleak picture for Rice and its fellow Conference USA peers.

As of May 1, at least 11 C-USA schools had lost at least one player this offseason. Eight had lost at least two. Rice was among at least three schools that have lost three or more. The exodus isn’t on its way. It’s here.

Reluctantly, Pera has made plans for the worse. “As much as I didn’t want those guys to leave, you can’t be on your heels in this process anymore in college basketball,” he said. “It is the world we live in.”

Rice responded by signing a seven-person class this spring. The new additions ranged from incoming high school players to experienced, junior college and grad transfer players. The Owls had a variety of holes to fill, so they cast a wide net. As much as they might not want it to be true, today’s transfer epidemic has, in many ways, become the new normal.

“We’ve kind of gotten used to this,” Pera said. It’s grim, but it’s reality. Rather than dwell on the negative, Pera and Rice basketball vow to keep moving forward with a new roster but the same purpose.

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