COURTNEY STEWART/Daily Bruin Freshman Gina
Umeck watches her ball after she putts in a tournament
earlier this season.
By Michelle Coppolella
Daily Bruin Contributor
The puzzle pieces of the UCLA women’s golf season looked
like they would never come together.
Tournament after tournament during the spring season seemed to
confirm the inevitable truth ““ the Bruins would have to wait
until the 2001-02 season to make the overdue trip to the NCAA
Finals.
“We knew we had the ability, but it just wasn’t
surfacing,” said freshman Gina Umeck.
Despite a fall season that included two first-place finishes and
a top-10 finish in four of five tournaments, a slow start to the
spring season proved detrimental to the Bruin flow.
The only top-10 finish earned by UCLA was at its own tournament,
the Pioneer Bruin Classic, where it placed fifth.
“Working hard doesn’t always guarantee
results,” Head Coach Carrie Leary said. “Instead, how
we feel and support one another turned out to play a bigger role
than anything else.”
And that’s where the picture-perfect start to greatness
began for UCLA. An unbreakable spirit and the knowledge that each
player possessed the skill, heart and determination to win were
eventually what advanced the Bruins to the NCAA Finals for the
first time in four years.
“You can go through the whole season playing mediocre golf
and finish among the top 10 (at Regionals) to qualify,” UCLA
Sports Information Director Rich Bertolucci said. “All you
need is some clutch performances from people who need to play
clutch golf.”
And these clutch performances were especially prevalent with
players like Leilani Bagby.
At the beginning of the year, Bagby wasn’t making the
impact predicted by the UCLA golf program. During the fall season,
despite being a senior and co-captain of the team, she didn’t
qualify to make one of the top five spots of the team to
participate in tournaments.
In November, however, she fought her way up the ladder and has
not looked down since. Bagby has been one of the top five starters
in five of the last six travel squads, finishing her UCLA golf
career with a bang.
Bagby especially came through for the Bruins when she shot 68 in
the third and final round of the NCAA Regionals two weeks ago,
leading UCLA to the NCAA Championships.
Bertolucci feels that Bagby’s success is not only a
representation of the team’s determination, but also a credit
to Leary for instilling this passion for the sport in players like
Bagby.
“Leilani is a case of competitiveness mirroring the
coach,” he said. “All coaches have their own style:
there are motivators, teachers, recruiters, delegators and
strategists, and I think the best coaches are a combo of all those
things. She’s undoubtedly developing into that
style.”
But Leary’s not the only one who has begun to develop her
own style. Freshmen Melissa Martin and Gina Umeck and redshirt
freshman Saki Uechi received honorable mentions on the
all-conference team at the Pac-10 Championships, honors that
sparked a fire in both the players and the team as a whole.
“We’ve built up a heck of a lot of momentum since
the Pac-10s,” Umeck said. “We’re just going to
ride that all the way to Nationals. We have nothing to
lose.”
And that momentum is only continuing to build. In the first
round of the four-round NCAA Finals, the Bruins are in second
place, with senior Laura Moffat leading the tournament in
first.
But to be able to select those national championship rings again
(UCLA last won it all in 1991), Leary feels the Bruins are going to
need to focus more on the team aspect of golf than anything
else.
“We will need one or two players to do great, but it is a
four-round event,” she said. “It’s going to have
to be a team effort. If we can stay focused, there’s no
telling what we could do.”