With five Pac-10 schools currently ranked in the top 25 for women’s swimming and diving, the UCLA swimming team will open conference play today by traveling to the desert to square off against Arizona State and Arizona.
The No. 14 Bruins (3-0, 1-0 Pac-10) will battle the Arizona State Sun Devils (4-0, 0-0 Pac-10) today in Tempe, Ariz., and then bus over to Tucson, Ariz., for a showdown with the No. 4 Wildcats (1-0, 0-0 Pac-10) on Saturday.
Swimming coach Cyndi Gallagher and diving coach Tom Stebbins agreed that the Pac-10 dual meets this weekend are important because they give the team a taste of the competition they will be facing in March when they compete for the Pac-10 championship as well as an NCAA championship.
“Arizona could win it all this year at NCAAs, and Arizona State is a much improved team as well,” Gallagher said. “There is some Bruin pride going into the Pac-10, and this is kind of a good indication of where we are in November.”
After being temporarily forced to scale back the intensity of practices due to the poor air quality caused by recent wildfires, Gallagher has ramped up the intensity of the Bruins’ practices these last two weeks to try to get her team back up to speed.
“I pretty much killed them last week (in practice) and this week too,” Gallagher said. “They can attest to that.”
Senior breaststroke swimmer Nicolette Teo did.
“The coaches have definitely kicked it up a notch,” Teo said. “Practices have been really hard. Last Saturday was one of the hardest sets I’ve ever done and I’ve been swimming for a really long time. At the same time, I feel like the team morale is really good. Everyone is really excited. We’re physically broken down, but I feel like, mentally, we’re just as strong or stronger (than we were two weeks ago).”
Both the swim and dive teams have changed their focus in practice over the past week to become more detail-oriented.
Gallagher stressed turns, starts and body position to her team, while Stebbins’ divers worked to fine-tune their lists of dives.
“I feel like we definitely (had) an enhanced level of attention to detail this week,” Stebbins said. “I think the focus isn’t on the bigger, more general corrections we (had) been spending time on, but now it’s on really actively pursuing the tiny things that are going to change dives from 5s to 6s, 6s to 7s, and hopefully from 7s to 8s.”
Dive co-captain Marisa Samaniegosaid the key to success for the divers will be how consistent they are from dive to dive.
As for the swim team, Teo said that, for the swimmers to perform well, they must focus on swimming the fastest they can personally swim and not worry about the times of their opponents, which they can’t control.
Teo, who has already won five events through two meets, will square off against Arizona’s Annie Chandler to highlight Saturday’s action.
Chandler comes into the dual meet having notched a win in the 100-yard breaststroke during a dual meet victory over No. 16 Wisconsin.
Gallagher says she thinks the team has worked hard and is as prepared as it is going to be for Pac-10 competition this early in the season. Nonetheless, she expects a lot from her team over the weekend.
“I want to see their spirit and their competitiveness,” Gallagher said.
“I want to see their fight. I want to see them race to their best ability no matter who they’re (up) against. I want them to be able to make changes from one meet to the next. I want them to swim two great meets, and I think they will.”