Prior to Saturday’s meet against USC, UCLA head coach
Cyndi Gallagher said, “There are lots of ways we can win, and
not just by the end results.”
In retrospect, Gallagher was right.
While the No. 12 Bruins finished the regular season with their
tenth straight loss to No. 4 USC 138-162, the team’s
morale, nevertheless, remained high.
“We improved by swimming faster than we did last
year,” junior Malin Svahnstrom said. “And of course we
wanted to beat them, but for everybody, we knew we did
better.”
The enthusiastic red- and gold-clad crowd at USC’s
McDonald’s Swim Stadium coupled with the Trojans’ nine
straight victories in the crosstown meet provided USC (5-3, 3-2
Pac-10) with an emotional advantage over the visiting Bruins (5-4,
2-4 Pac-10).
But the Bruins rallied behind the performance of junior Sara
Platzer. Platzer won the 50-meter freestyle in 23.45 seconds and
later tied freshman Kim Vandenberg in winning the 100-meter
freestyle in 51.26.
Junior Taylor Spivey also swam well for the Bruins, taking first
place in the 100-meter freestyle, and placing second in the
200-meter backstroke.
While these performances were not enough to secure a victory for
the Bruins, the experience was still a good one for the squad as a
whole.
Despite facing one of the nation’s elite diving teams, the
Bruins tight-knit group of divers stood out in their events.
Senior Jen McNally took third in the one-meter dive, and fifth
in the three-meter dive. Senior Regan Gosnell also contributed
with a fourth-place finish in both the one-meter and three-meter
events, while freshman Paige Thompson took fifth and third
respectively.
USC’s Blythe Hartley, the NCAA individual diving champion,
took wins in both the one-meter and three-meter dives, securing 18
crucial points for the Trojans.
While the Bruins were unable to pull off the upset, they will
have another shot at their crosstown rivals later this month at the
Pac-10 Championships.
“We’re not worrying about anything else right now.
We have separate swimmers training for the Pac-10s,”
Svahnstrom said. “We’ve done all the work already to
prepare for it.”
More than half the squad is in training right now in preparation
for the Pac-10 Championships which will be held in Federal Way,
Wash., this year.