It hadn’t occurred to too many members of the UCLA
swimming and diving team that they might walk away with their
second Pac-10 Championship in three years.
On the plane ride there, they thought only of achieving more
personal bests. But from the start of the competition, the Bruins
dominated every other school, and captured the Pac-10 crown with
1,399 points.
“It was an awesome experience,” junior Malin
Svahnstrom said. “We didn’t even talk about winning
before the first day. But after that, we realized we were ahead of
all the other teams by 10 points and we started to think, maybe we
can win this.”
Having lost their dual meets against Stanford, USC and Cal, UCLA
managed to surpass not only its own expectations, but also upset
the competition.
Thursday’s top performances in the 200-meter and 400-meter
medley relay teams gave UCLA an early lead in the conference.
The competition continued through Saturday, where the gap
between UCLA and the rest of the other schools only grew. Stanford
finished second with 1,308 points, and USC followed with 1,138.
“I’m really proud of the team,” junior Kristen
Lewis said. “It’s just a lot of our hard work paying
off.”
Lewis placed fifth in the 200m butterfly, behind teammate Kim
Vandenberg in second. Other leaders in the pool were junior Sarah
Platzer in third place in the 100m freestyle race (49.28), and
Naoko Watanabe taking fifth in the 200m backstroke.
The divers were led by senior Regan Gosnell with a third place
finish on the platform, and by senior Jen McNally in eighth.
Up next is the NCAA Championships held on March 20.