GREENVILLE, N.C. - East Carolina's Women's Swimming and Diving team heads to Houston, Texas for the 2004 Conference USA championships to be held Thursday through Saturday. The Lady Pirates look for their second consecutive conference championship after winning the title in 2003. The ECU men will take part in the C-USA Invitational hosted by the University of Houston.

The meet begins Thursday morning and will run through Saturday evening. Each day's action begins at 10 a.m. with the swimming preliminaries. Once the preliminaries are completed, the diving competition will start around 1 p.m., each day with the swimming finals slated to begin around 6 p.m.

Hosted by the Cougars, the C-USA meet will be held at the Campus Recreation & Wellness Center Natatorium, located on the corner of Calhoun and University on the UH campus. This will be the first time in the three-year history of the C-USA meet that it will be held at the site of a participating school.

The Lady Pirates finished the regular season, 8-2, after going 3-1 during the winter season. Junior Diane Parker, the reigning Conference USA Swimmer of the Year, leads the team.Parker set two ECU school records during the regular season in the 200 IM (2:02.37) and 100 butterfly (54.66).

ECU has posted six of the conference's top times behind Parker's times in the 100 fly and 200 IM. Sophomore Holly Williams holds the conference's best time in the 200 backstroke (2:03.57) while Parker and freshman Kate Gordon have posted two of the top three times in the 200 butterfly . ECU's 400 freestyle relay team (Parker, Courtney Felker, Martha Snead, Adrienne Willaims), 800 freestyle relay team (Parker, Kate Gordon, Felker, Jennie Meade) and 400 medley team (Snead, Meredith Lindgren, Parker , Adrienne Williams) all have posted the top times in Conference USA.

On the men's side, the Pirates return C-USA Invitational champions in junior Casey Cronin (200 breaststroke) and senior Matt Walker (200 freestyle). Cronin has led the team all season. He's posted top times in the 100 freestyle (45.23), 200 freestyle (1:39.00), 500 freestyle (4:39.88), 1000 freestyle (9:53.30), 200 IM (1:52.44), 400 IM (4:08.45) and 200 breaststroke (2:07.73).