Monday, January 25, 1999
UCLA devours Rice for lunch
in season’s final home meet
SWIMMING: Despite close races, Bruins victorious over Owls
By Steve Kim
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
In a short, sweet, speedy meet, the UCLA women’s swimming and
diving team defeated the Rice Owls, 127-68, in their season’s final
home meet.
The Owls, lacking a diving program, came in with an automatic
disadvantage. All the Bruin divers had to do was show up and be
judged.
Bruin swimmers then finished the meet off successfully by
winning 9 out of 10 events. Several close finishes between a Bruin
and her opponent showed that Rice did put up a fight, though.
"I thought they were actually good," UCLA head coach Cyndi
Gallagher said of Rice. "We never like to take any team lightly but
maybe we did, so we found ourselves thinking, ‘Hey, we really have
to race.’"
Freshman Katie Younglove led the 1,000-yard freestyle as well as
the 500 yard. Hilary Peterson held off two Rice swimmers to win the
200-yard butterfly. Another Bruin freshman, Nicole Beck, added one
more 200-yard backstroke victory to her list of backstroke
wins.
"It was a great meet not only because there was more enthusiasm
and cheering within the team than our previous meet but everyone
raced a little better," senior co-captain Emmanuelle Schick-Garcia
said.
"We’ve been doing ‘lactic acid’ workouts, where we do a lot of
racing in practice so that helps us a lot."
Freshman Jen Noddle out-touched her teammates to win both the
200-yard individual medley (IM) and 200-yard breaststroke. These
races were an exclusive Bruin fight to the finish as Junior Keiko
Price closely followed on the 200 IM and freshman Lyndee Hovsepian
did the same in the 200 breast.
Junior Beth Goodwin won the 50-yard freestyle while Price shot
out on the 100 free with an NCAA consideration time of 50.56
seconds. Price and her teammates, Goodwin and senior Becky
Thompson, swept the 100 free race.
Thompson, who is recovering from pneumonia, edged out a Rice
swimmer to win the 200-yard freestyle race. She says her time of
1:53.94 wasn’t as fast as she’d like to go but then again she
didn’t complain about the win.
"My lungs feel kind of tight but I’m getting better," Thompson
said of her illness. "I don’t really think about it when I’m
swimming. I worry about it when I get home."
Having participated in the last home meet of their college
swimming career, senior team members expressed mixed emotions.
"The conclusion of this meet was a bittersweet moment because we
won but it was our last home meet," senior co-captain Amanda Hall
said. "It’s the kind of thing you don’t look forward to but you’re
glad it’s here."
Not so fast – the season is far from over.
The Bruins face tough competition against Stanford and Cal this
weekend and Gallagher says she’s going to re-evaluate her swimmers
after their performance against Rice.
"They’re making it difficult for me to pick the travel team
because so many of them are stepping up and swimming fast," the
head coach said. "I already picked the travel team but I may have
to look back and see who’s going to be able to do the best at this
point."PATIL ARMENIAN/Daily Bruin
Breaststroker Amy Wines competes in a meet against the
University of Arizona earlier this season. The Bruins beat Rice
127-68 in their meet on Friday.
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