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UCLA’s Monique Henderson won the 200 and 400 meters at the NCAA West Regionals in Eugene, O

Whatever chance the UCLA women’s track and field team has to defend its national championship will rest on the shoulders of its smallest contingent of qualifiers in almost a decade.

Eight Bruins earned bids to next week’s NCAA Championships this past weekend at the West Regionals in Oregon – barely half the number of athletes UCLA sent to Texas a year ago.

But the third-ranked Bruins do have some cause for optimism after their second-place finish. Of their eight qualifiers, six are former All-Americans who have succeeded at the NCAA level before.

“I’ve told them all along, ‘Don’t look at the quantity of the athletes we’re sending,’” UCLA coach Jeanette Bolden said. “‘Look at the quality.’ Even though we don’t have as many athletes as last year, we’re sending more No. 1s than we ever have before.”

To escape Oregon’s venerable Hayward Field with their NCAA title hopes intact, the Bruins had to advance all of their top athletes and weather a heavy thunderstorm, which delayed the meet for 1 hour and 40 minutes Saturday.

And despite a few near-disasters even before the weather deteriorated, all of UCLA’s stars survived the weekend unscathed.

Monique Henderson ran a national-leading 50.78 seconds to win the 400 meters. Jessica Cosby fought through pneumonia to qualify in the shot put and the hammer throw. Candice Baucham breezed through the weekend in the long jump and triple jump. And collegiate record-holder Chelsea Johnson, despite a near-disastrous sixth-place finish in the pole vault, will almost certainly qualify for NCAAs via an at-large bid.

“There were a lot of upsets, so for all of the people who we were counting on to make it, I feel pretty good,” Henderson said. “I would have liked to see some other people qualify, but I still feel like we have a strong team.”

Of course, that team could have been even stronger had some of UCLA’s less-experienced athletes enjoyed a breakout meet this weekend.

Bolden had been hoping that this would be the weekend that long jumper Renee Williams would snap out of her season-long slump, that thrower Briona Reynolds would regain her form in the discus, and that freshman Jolanda Diego would come of age in the 100 meters.

In each case, it didn’t happen. So while sophomore MacKenzie Hill came through for the Bruins with a season-best 59.60 seconds in the 400-meter hurdles, Bolden left Oregon with conflicted feelings about the weekend.

“You always have mixed emotions after a meet like this,” she said. “We had people who should make it, and they did. But you also feel for the athletes who are trying to get to that position.”

For the past five years, UCLA has averaged 15 athletes at NCAAs, finishing in the top three four times. The Bruins, who with heptathlete Nastassja Hall will send nine athletes to Nationals in Sacramento, are confident they can challenge top-ranked Texas and No. 2 South Carolina for the title again this year, even with perhaps their smallest margin for error in years.

“We know the situation,” UCLA hurdler Dawn Harper said. “One error and the championship is lost. But we have to try not to think about it. Once you start thinking that way, that’s when you start messing up.”

With their championship hopes relying on only nine athletes, however, mistakes aren’t something the Bruins can afford.