UCLA Sports Info Krystal Shearer will
compete this weekend at the Stanford Pepsi Invitational.
WOMEN’S GOLF PREVIEW Stanford Pepsi Invitational
Friday-Saturday Stanford, California
By Pauline Vu
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
The No. 16 women’s golf team heads to this weekend’s
Stanford Invitational with their third different No. 5 player in
three tournaments.
Consistently, true freshman Gina Umeck, redshirt freshman Saki
Uecki, junior Alicia Um and senior Laura Moffat have made the
traveling team in all of UCLA’s events so far.
But the No. 5 player switched off every single time.
“We’re still trying to look for a fifth player
who’s going to step up and do something,” UCLA head
coach Carrie Leary said.
This time, it’s true freshman Krystal Shearer rounding out
the five.
According to Leary, Shearer has been on the bubble each time in
the team’s intrasquad tournaments, held before each official
event to determine who travels.
“She’s been really close every time, she’s
been the sixth person,” Leary said. “She played really
well last week in the final round (of the team event) to qualify.
She’s had a lot of good numbers out in practice.”
The loaded field has 17 teams, 10 of them ranked, including No.
1 Arizona, No. 3 USC, No. 5 Stanford, No. 10 Pepperdine, No. 11
Tulsa and No. 12 New Mexico State.
“It’s a really good field and we’re just
looking forward to going up there and playing well, and really
proving ourselves against the strength of the field,” Leary
said. “It’ll be a good test for us. We made some
progress last week at Washington, so hopefully we’ll continue
that into this week at Stanford.”
Last week, the women placed fifth at the Edean Ihlanfeldt
Invitational in Washington, which included several of the teams
that will be at the Stanford Invitational.
Um believes that last week’s finish should spur this
week’s finish.
“We have more confidence because we played well at the
last tournament,” she said.
Umeck, the team’s top finisher in Washington, says the
team will also look to poorer finishes in earlier tournaments to
inspire them.
“I think we’re all motivated by our lower
finishes,” she said. “I don’t think any of us
were satisfied because we know we can be No. 1.”
The Bruins go into the Stanford Invitational determined to be
proud of themselves when they leave it. But there’s never a
normal day in the game of golf.
“It’s golf, it’s hard to predict,” Leary
said. “They’re prepared and that’s all you can
do. When you get out there, you never know what’s going to
happen. Just hope for the best.”
And at least one of the players, Um, is doing that.
“I think we’ll do well,” she said.
“Everything’s just coming together.”
. . .
Five members of the UCLA golf’s blue team will head to San
Diego this weekend to play in the Aztec Invitational: Johanna
Andersson Bridget Dwyer, Leilani Bagby, Vivan Phosomran and Melissa
Martin.
“We’re looking forward to having a great time out
there,” said assistant coach Ken Lewis, who will travel with
the blue squad. “We’ve prepared the girls properly, so
it’s their time to shine.”