W. swimming loses cockfight with USC

Published: Monday, October 31, 1994

Bruins, Gauchos fail to overcome Gamecock divers

By Ross Bersot

The UCLA women's swimming team could have doubled it's pleasure Saturday at the Men's Gym pool with victories vs. South Carolina and UC Santa Barbara. Instead, the Gamecocks tallied two wins, carrying a marked advantage in the diving events. UCSB did not finish better than third place in any event, adding two losses to their record.

The sun shone bright as did the Bruins, who started the meet with a first-place finish in the 400-yard medley relay. Sharon Webster, Lindsay Etter, Jill Jenkins and Kasey Foster turned in a 3:51.53 performance, the best UCLA time of the season. As the day progressed, the weather darkened and so did the Bruins' hopes. By the final event, smog and clouds had descended on the pool, along with the diving scores, negating a victorious swimming performance for the home team.

"It's a swimming and diving meet," said head coach Cyndi Gallagher. "Sometimes diving helps us win meets, unfortunately the last two teams (we have faced) have had really good divers."

Despite early-season diving woes, the swimmers are approaching mid-season form. Jenkins won the 100 free for the second consecutive week, though she feels she could be doing better.

"I felt weaker (than last week)," said Jenkins. "I didn't think this weekend was as good as last weekend."

Jenkins also finished second in the 50 free, losing by a scant two-hundredths of a second. Several other Bruins turned in outstanding performances, but Annette Salmeen was the standout winning every time she entered the water.

Salmeen not only won the 500 and 1000 free and the 300 fly, she beat UCLA season-best times by margins of seconds. In an incredible display of competitiveness, Salmeen came from behind to beat South Carolina's Valery Calkins in the 500 free. Trailing Calkins before the last turn, she appeared to look into the Gamecock's lane and notice Calkins' position a yard ahead. This prompted a surge in Salmeen's stroke that carried her to a 4:54.19 victory, almost a second ahead of Calkins.

"Technically you're supposed to swim your own race, but for me, I really like the racing environment so I'm always watching back and forth," Salmeen said. "I knew where (Calkins) was and I was trying to catch her. I knew she was a 200 freestyler and knew she had a good sprint at the end so that's why I started my sprint a little earlier."

The meet format did not allow UCLA to use its depth since only two swimmers scored for each team in each event. Key breaststroker Glenda Lueders did not compete and sprinter Megan Oesting suffered from an illness but gave all she could in the 63-52 loss.

Gallagher remains upbeat about the team's early-season form and is not concerned with its 1-2 dual meet record.

"These are just early-season meets and we look for good races," Gallagher said. "The closer to the NCAAs we get, the better we are. We would love to have two wins on our record but this year we don't. It's not the end of the world."