Friday, January 22, 1999
Swimming, diving team expects victory in home meet with Rice
PREVIEW: Bruins plan on using match as practice for tougher
competition
By Steve Kim
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
A piece of cake? Make that a piece of rice cake.
The UCLA women’s swimming and diving team will use the team from
Rice as a stepping stone toward the more difficult meets ahead as
they host the visiting Owls in their last home meet of the season,
3:30 p.m. Friday afternoon at the Men’s Gym pool.
Being a smaller and of lower division team than the Bruins and
lacking a diving squad, Rice will almost certainly be outscored by
their Bruin hosts. Really, the competition is within the UCLA
team.
"We have a lot more depth and versatility than Rice, so I expect
big things from our team," UCLA head coach Cyndi Gallagher said.
"Being in school for a couple of weeks and having done well in our
last meet, they should be on their way to have a fast, fantastic
meet."
Last week when the Bruins raced against Fresno State and
Washington State, they won every event in the meet. Several factors
played into their success.
Junior Keiko Price leads the team with her 16 individual
victories this season. Her 50 yard freestyle time of 22.86 seconds
is the second fastest in the nation this year, and her speed
carries into the 100 and 200 yard distances.
Sophomore Beth Goodwin has not lost the 100 yard butterfly race
yet. Improving her freestyle time as well, Goodwin will also be a
player in the relays. Freshman Katie Younglove is likely to take
the lead in the 200 fly while Nicole Beck is anticipated to excel
in the backstroke events.
The breaststroke can be taken by any of these three Bruins:
junior Amber Wines and freshmen Lyndee Hovsepian and Jen Noddle.
The 100 and 200 yard breaststroke will be a close call between the
three.
Although Rice doesn’t have any divers competing, UCLA divers
must still be judged and scored in order for the overall swimming
and diving points to count. It’s an unusual situation, competing
without an opponent, but Bruin divers feel this will provide them
with a chance to prepare themselves for the tougher meets against
Stanford and Cal next weekend.
"It’s still good practice," sophomore Anne Baghramian said.
"It’ll be good to run through our dual meet routines because a lot
of us have been making changes. We get to see where our points
improve."
In anticipation of much tougher rivals in weeks ahead, the
Bruins are taking this meet as an opportunity to tune up and speed
up.
Senior swimming co-captain Emmanuelle Schick-Garcia is so
confident of her team’s success today, she’s willing to put more
than just pride on the line.
"I’ll bet my money we’ll win," Schick-Garcia said. "We want to
be graceful when we win, but we’re going to win."
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