• printer friendly
• mail this article
• iPod format
• digg

Swimmers gearing up for second half of season

Bruins continue training over break to face UCSD and Michigan in dual meets

By Ross Bersot

The week after finals, all around school, not a creature will be stirring, except in the pool. While most Bruins will head home for the winter break, UCLA swimming will continue racing toward the postseason with a full practice schedule and two dual meets.

"We're going to try to do some racing during hard Christmas training," head coach Cyndi Gallagher said. "(The dual meets) don't really mean anything."

Moderate workouts after the Speedo Cup and during finals require that the team trains intensively during the 23-day vacation in order to remain in top condition for the second and most important half of the season.

"We try to get them to (swim) once a day (during finals week) because it's good to keep the feel of the water. They need the break of swimming from studying," Gallagher said. "We only (practice) five times the whole week. It's an hour-and-a-half of no-brainer swimming. They get in and they swim and they don't have to race. They don't have to think, it's just aerobic. I don't really consider it a lost week, I just consider it kind of a transition.

"Some coaches in other places go twice a day. They don't change their schedules at all and I think that is a joke. (The swimmers') bodies need a rest because of what the stress level is during finals week."

The first interruption in the Bruins' rigorous training will be the Jan. 5 meet at UC San Diego, a team which is ranked third nationally in NCAA Division III and will provide UCLA an important opportunity to shuffle the lineup.

"San Diego is right in the middle of our Christmas training," Gallagher said. "It will be good for us to remember what it's like to race again. We'll have people do different events and that is always good. Sometimes all the sprinters ever do is 50 (yards), 100, 50, 100 so it is nice to throw them into the 1,000."

Two days later, Michigan will arrive in Westwood for a showdown at noon at the Men's Gym pool. According to Gallagher, the Wolverines should be the second-ranked team in the nation, and could even occupy the top spot in the next poll.

Their roster depth has propelled them to a 3-0 dual meet record in Big Ten Conference competition and first-place finishes at two invitationals, the Northwestern Relays and the Southern Methodist Classic, where UCLA finished third.

Similarities between the two programs do not end with common competitions this season. At last year's NCAA Championships, the Bruins finished seventh with 191 points, one place ahead of Michigan, which earned 173. Both schools gear their performance to the NCAAs and usually finish in the top 10.

"I've got some Michigan kids, and a lot of these kids looked at UCLA and Michigan and made their decision," Gallagher said. "I got half of them and (Michigan head coach Jim Richardson) got the other half. I recruit a lot against them, and Jim and I are really good friends and great competitors. It's a good program, a solid program and the last two years they've just gotten tons of freshman recruits coming in."

Three years ago, in the only other dual meet between the schools, UCLA was beating Michigan, 173-125, before official scoring was stopped at the midway point of the meet. This time around the matchup favors the visitors, led by senior Alecia Humphrey and sophomore Rachel Gustin. Humphrey has already automatically qualified for the NCAAs in the 100 and 200-yard backstroke, with times of 54.78 and 1:54.65. Gustin has done the same in the 200 breaststroke and 200 individual medley, with times of 2:14.40 and 2:01.12.

Annette Salmeen, Jill Jenkins, Lindsay Etter, Megan Oesting and Cindy Bertelink will have to build on their consideration qualification marks if the Bruins are to have a chance to win. Continued success in the relays will also be key to UCLA's effort.

"It will be a good meet. We will both be tired, hopefully they'll be sick and tired," Gallagher said. "It doesn't really mean anything. It doesn't mean if we beat them, we're going to win NCAAs. It doesn't mean if they beat us and kill us that they're going to beat us and kill us (at NCAAs) because last year I thought they were going to beat us at NCAAs and they didn't. They had a great team last year, too, so you just never reallyknow."

Comments

Post a comment