Wednesday, February 24, 1999
Team fired up for Pac-10 championships
SWIMMING: Meet gives chance for best times, NCAA
qualifications
By Steve Kim
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
The swimming and diving team has a calendar used solely for
counting down the days until the Pac-10 championships. And, after
dozens of crossed out days and a season of preparation, they have
finally arrived.
The UCLA women’s team is already in Federal Way, Wash. for what
is to be the toughest competition of all the conferences. The
Pac-10 includes four of the top 10 ranked teams, including
Stanford, USC, Arizona and Cal. And head coach Cyndi Gallagher is
certainly aware of this fact.
"The Pac-10 meet is really stiff competition, but it’s an
advantage because once we do go to the NCAA’s, it’s no big deal,"
Gallagher said.
Three divers have already qualified for the NCAA regionals by
scoring adequately in one of the dual meets. Swimmers who haven’t
already qualified for the NCAAs use the Pac-10s as their last
chance to make the cut.
Those who have already made it to the NCAAs include Keiko Price
on the 50 and 100 yard freestyle and Katie Younglove on the 200
yard butterfly. Beth Goodwin is likely to make the cut in the 100
butterfly, while several breaststrokers are also in the hunt.
In all, Gallagher sees a swell of potential ready to explode at
this three-day meet.
"There’s so many people knocking on the doors right now, so it’s
a great opportunity for them, especially freshmen, to step up and
qualify," she said.
Because the majority of the swimmers rest prior to the meet,
their fastest season times are expected be posted at Washington.
And for such a big meet, swimmers will enhance their speed with
traditional preparations, senior captain Amanda Hall said.
"You could tell the excitement in the pool," Hall said. "The
energy level has catapulted from like negative two to over
100."
The same goes in the diving pool. Freshman Liz Ackerman enters
the conference championship meet with relatively little experience,
but knows exactly what to anticipate.
"Everyone we dove against in dual meets is going to be there so
we pretty much know what to expect -some very tough competition,"
Ackerman said.
"But right now, practice has been coming together very well, and
we all feel ready for this meet."
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