The No. 11 UCLA swimming and diving team split weekend meets
last Friday and Saturday on a road trip to Arizona. The Bruins
defeated No. 13 Arizona State 186-114 in Tempe on Friday, before
falling to No. 7 Arizona on Saturday in Tucson by a score of
144-118.
UCLA, now 4-1, 2-1 in the Pac-10, was aided by a strong showing
by the diving squad.
“The divers did a great job,” coach Cyndi Gallagher
said. “They outscored Arizona 27-11, but unfortunately we
were not able to take advantage of the opportunity.”
Sophomore sensation Kim Vandenberg again highlighted the meet
for UCLA. Vandenberg, who qualified for the NCAA meet with an
“A-Standard” time of 2:11.82 in the 200-meter butterfly
against University of San Diego last week, bettered her time
against the Sun Devils. She swam a half-second faster, winning the
event in 2:11.32.
“Kim did a great job,” Gallagher said. “She
won both of her races, and they were tough races to win. She is
going against a national team kid (Arizona’s Whitney Myers),
and Kim beat her without a problem.”
Vandenberg was not the only Bruin to swim noticeably well during
the weekend road trip.
Against Arizona State, freshman Jane Imagane won the 800m and
400m freestyle races; senior Sara Platzer won the 50m free and
finished second in the 100m free, and senior Malin Svhanstrom won
the 200m free.
Against the Wildcats, senior Brooke Winkler won the 200m
Individual Medley while freshman Katie Arnold won the 50m free.
“A lot of girls are really swimming well for this point in
the season,” Gallagher said.
The Bruins knew they were going to be diving into choppy waters
in Tucson when they saw Arizona had defeated No. 5 USC the day
before.
“We haven’t beaten Arizona for a long time, and this
year I was really hoping that we would be able to do that,”
Gallagher said. “So I am a bit disappointed that we did not
step up and swim better on the second day.
“Not to take away how some kids swam against Arizona, but
I really believe that we could have been a little more competitive
on the swimming side,” she said. “We raced okay, but we
are better than what we showed.”
UCLA faces a continuously tough Pac-10 schedule as their season
progresses. The final three dual meets on the Bruin’s Pac-10
schedule pit UCLA against Stanford, California and USC, currently
fourth, ninth and fifth, respectively, in the country. The
difference, Gallagher hopes, will be the location of the meets.
“The rest of our really tough conference meets are at
home,” the coach said. “We like swimming at home a lot
more.”
UCLA travels next weekend to College Station, Texas, to swim in
the Texas A&M Invitational.