CATHY JUN Freshman Kristin Lewis forges ahead. The swimming and diving NCAA Championships start today and take place in Long Island, N.Y. UCLA sends nine swimmers and one diver to compete for the title. WOMEN'S SWIMMING NCAA Women’s Swimming and Diving Championships March 15-17 Nassau County Aquatic Center Long Island, NY
By Scott Schultz
Daily Bruin Contributor
To say that this season has been an emotional roller coaster for the Bruin women’s swimming and diving team is an understatement.
“This has been an unusual year,” UCLA Head Coach Cyndi Gallagher said. “I’ve never had a year so wild.”
For awhile the Bruins were ranked No. 1 in the country for the first time in the history of their program. However, they suffered three tough dual meet losses to end the regular season.
The swimmers were excited about finishing second in the Pac-10 Championships, but were ecstatic when informed 10 days later that they actually won the Pac-10s for the first time in the history of the program. It turned out the diving scores were not included in the original tally.
The significance of the team entering the NCAAs as Pac-10 champions can not be undermined, as the conference boasts five of the top 10 teams in the country.
“This season has all been building on what we’re doing here,” Gallagher said. “It didn’t happen overnight.”
The No. 6 Bruins’ landmark season concludes this weekend in Long Island, N.Y., at the NCAA Championships, where they will look to finish the season in the top five and possibly finish with the highest ranking in the history of the program.
“We’re looking for personal bests,” Bruin senior backstroker Brighid Dwyer said. “Because we placed higher than ever in the Pac-10s, we would like to place our highest ever in the NCAAs.”
UCLA finished with a No. 5 ranking after the 1989-90 and 1990-91 seasons.
The Bruins have not allowed the confusion with the Pac-10 results to be a distraction as they prepare for the season finale.
“With some of the controversy going on the last few weeks, we had to wait and see what would happen next,” junior Jen Noddle said. “I think all of that fueled our fire.
“We’re over the anxiety, and we’re ready,” she added.
The Bruins are represented by a squad of nine swimmers and one diver.
This season’s championship meet squad will have three senior swimmers representing UCLA – Brighid Dwyer, Beth Goodwin, and Julia Voitovitsch, all of whom could finish their UCLA careers by shattering existing school records in their events.
Senior diver Anne Baghramian is the lone representative of the diving squad. She will participate in all three diving events.
Two Bruin freshman swimmers – Sara Platzer and Brooke Winkler – will enter the NCAAs already owning UCLA records. Platzer holds the school record in the 100 yard freestyle, and Winkler has the record for the 400yd individual medley.
“Both freshmen won their morning races at the Pac-10s, so they’re not easily intimidated,” Gallagher said.
What makes this meet more difficult than the Pac-10s and regular dual meets is that the Bruins can only compete the nine swimmers and one diver who hit the NCAA qualifying marks.
This nullifies UCLA’s depth factor. The Bruins’ depth enabled them to gobble up points in the dual meets and the Pac-10s, where a team can enter its top three swimmers in each event.
Since UCLA only has nine swimmers, it will only be able to race a limited number of relays. By skipping relays, the Bruins will be sacrificing points to teams like No. 1 Arizona and No. 2 Georgia, who will come with enough swimmers to have teams in all the relays.
In order to compete on a relay team, the swimmer already has to be swimming in a separate event at the meet.
Goodwin and Voitovitsch, along with junior Katie Younglove, will compete in the butterfly races. Voitovitsch currently holds the record in the 100yd with a time of 53.16 seconds, but all three racers are poised to eclipse that time this weekend
The butterfly competition will be fierce as the category features several of the marquee names in swimming, including Stanford senior Misty Hyman and Cal freshman Natalie Coughlin.
The Bruin who stands the best shot at winning an individual championship this weekend is the youngest member of the entourage. Eighteen-year-old Platzer, who should break some school records in the freestyle events this weekend, is within a fraction of a second of the top time in the 50yd freestyle.
However, a fraction of a second is an imposing lead when Texas senior Colleen Lane, the best freestyle swimmer in the country, holds that lead.
Junior Lyndee Hovsepian, who is making her third trip to the NCAAs, is confident that the team will continue its success.
“I think as a team, we can place in the top 5 for the first time,” Hovsepian said. “We made school history at the Pac-10s, and now hopefully we can make history at the NCAAs.”
The Bruin swimmers have handled an enormous amount of emotion this season. However, they’ve got their egos in check, while recognizing that anything is possible in their historic season.
“We keep surprising ourselves,” Dwyer said. “We were surprised when we beat Arizona. We were surprised when we won the Texas invite. We were surprised when we won the Pac-10s. It shows sometimes we’re better than we think.”