Tuesday, January 21, 1997
By Ahmar Qasim
Daily Bruin Contributor
Last weekend the UCLA women’s diving team competed in the annual
Bruin Invitational at the Rose Bowl Aquatic center.
The Bruins continued to show why they have a 6-0 record and are
undefeated this year. Team scores were not compiled at the invite,
but five out of the six Bruin divers which included juniors Tracy
Wilcox, Alicia Solomon and Rose Huelskamp, along with sophomore
sensations Rebecca Ronsaville and Laura Segundo all placed in the
top 20 in both the one-meter and three-meter boards.
"We have a real experienced team; we’re all sophomores and
juniors, so we’ve all dove before," junior Alicia Solomon said.
"Everyone rose to the occasion, we all dove very well."
Five late registrations by Fresno, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo,
University of San Diego, San Diego State and No. 1-ranked Stanford
pushed the meet up to 10 teams competing.
"The Invitational was good for us," Solomon said. "It is like
the Pac-10 Championships; there are about 35-40 divers so it helps
to do this before the (Pac-10) Championships."
Although the meet was very successful for the divers, they still
admit there are aspects of their dives which need to be
refined.
"The coach was happy with how we dove," junior Rose Huelskamp
said. "There still are things we need to work on. Like consistency
in our dives. We have to go in the water cleaner."
Lying in the wake of the Bruins are match-ups against powerhouse
Stanford and crosstown rival USC. To make the situation even
tougher, the Bruins head off to the Pac-10 Championships just three
days after battling the Trojans.
However, one advantage emerges from the whole scenario. Last
weekend’s meet might have foretold who will be the reigning Pac-10
Champion. It will likely come down to USC, Stanford and UCLA.
Conveniently, these same three teams were at the Bruin
Invitational.
"Stanford and USC are definitely our toughest competition,"
Huelskamp said. "This year USC has lots of freshmen. They have a
lot of divers (and) they have this girl (Dorte Linder) from
Germany; she qualified in the German Olympic Trials."
The ladies will soon face a road trip up north, beginning with
Stanford, and then Berkeley. They will then return to Southern
California to battle USC and finish up league play.
GENEVIEVE LIANG/Daily Bruin
Junior Rose Huelskamp placed in the top 20 in both the one-meter
and three-meter board competition over the weekend.