By Scott Schultz
Daily Bruin Contributor
The UCLA women’s swim team kicks off its Pac-10 schedule
this weekend with a pair of dual meets at home. The Bruins face off
against Arizona State on Friday and No. 1 ranked Arizona on
Saturday at the Men’s Gym Pool.
Last year, the Bruins finished in fourth place in the Pac-10
with a conference record of 2-4. However, that record is
misleading, since five teams in the Pac-10 finished in the top
eight nationally. Last season in the NCAA championship rankings,
UCLA was No. 8.
This weekend’s meets will be a good test for the Bruins,
who have begun the season 2-0 after decisive non-conference
victories against UC Santa Barbara and San Diego.
“These dual meets are a time of adjustments,” UCLA
head coach Cyndi Gallagher said. “We don’t do a lot of
peaking during dual meets, because dual meets are a time to learn
and to make changes.”
Even though the swimmers consider this part of the season a
training period for the Pac-10 Championships in February and the
NCAA Championships in March, they still want to win every meet.
“We want to win because everyone in this elite group I
have is very competitive,” Gallagher said. “They want
to win, they like to win, but we don’t want to give up
anything to win.”
Last season, the Bruins lost at Arizona State 115-128 and at
Arizona 122-186.
“Arizona State tends to do well against us,”
Gallagher said. “They have a different training cycle than we
do.”
Gallagher will depend on All-American seniors Julia Voitovitsch
(butterfly), Beth Goodwin (fly/freestyle) and Brighid Dwyer
(back/fly) to lead the Bruins. “We’re going to race the
fastest people who I think can win,” Gallagher said.
Arizona State will be led by distance swimmers Lyndsay Devaney
and Sarah Baham (fly). Arizona, which is loaded with talent, will
be led by ’96 Olympian Beth Botsford (backstroke) and Sarah
Tolar, who missed qualifying for the 2000 Olympics by 1/100th of a
second.
The swimmers will compete at the Men’s Gym Pool on Friday
at 1 p.m. and on Saturday at the Men’s Gym Pool at noon. The
divers will compete on Friday at 11 a.m. at Park Pool at the Sunset
Recreation Center and on Saturday at 10 a.m. at USC.