By Michelle Coppolella
Daily Bruin Reporter
With a seventh place finish at last year’s Pac-10
Championship, the UCLA women’s golf team’s need to
break its 11-year drought went unsatisfied. However, after six
top-10 finishes this season, an unfamiliar wave of confidence and
potential to re-emerge as the Pac-10 champion has swept over the
Bruins for the first time since 1991.
The No. 16 Bruins now look to reclaim the title it hasn’t
possessed since 1990, as it enters the Pac-10 Championships in
Walla Walla, Wash. today through Wednesday.
“It’s going to be a real team effort because no
single player has dominated our team,” head coach Carrie
Leary said. “We need to worry about our own ball, and in this
tournament, it’s going to take all five starters to make a
good showing.”
Senior captain Alicia Um, sophomores Melissa Martin and Gina
Umeck and freshmen Yvonne Choe and Kristin Thompson will lead the
Bruins in a tournament laden with tough competition from No. 2
Arizona and No. 10 Arizona State. UCLA, however, has beaten both
teams at different points in the season, leaving the Pac-10 title
wide open to any team.
Despite an eighth place finish in the California Collegiate
tournament at Stanford last weekend, the Bruins are confident in
their ability to finish strong in Pac-10 performance.
“Last week we were really tired and we didn’t have
time to rest and recuperate before we went to the
tournament,” Um said. “We’re definitely capable
of winning the whole thing, and our goal is just to play our game
and stay focused.”
If anything, Leary felt the eighth place finish forced UCLA to
reevaluate its position in the collegiate golf world.
“To finish (in third place) at the ASU tournament and then
do so poorly at Stanford really served as a wake-up call to the
team and re-infused the motivation and focus of the girls at
practice,” Leary said. “You can’t get cocky in
golf because it will come back to get you.”
That’s not to say that the Bruins will enter the
tournament passively, as the newfound sense of confidence in
individual and team ability has propelled UCLA to one of its best
pre-Pac-10 seasons in the past decade.
“I know we’re a better team this year then we were
last year,” Leary said. “The girls are really
enthusiastic about going to Washington and they’re ready and
excited to play well.”