Daily Bruin – Page 310

The Rundown: Jan. 8

Football
Sam Connon, assistant Sports editor

Josh Rosen’s first NFL season ended like it began – in not-so-spectacular fashion.

The former UCLA football quarterback started 13 games for the Arizona Cardinals after being selected with the 10th overall pick in last year’s NFL Draft. After being Sam Bradford’s backup in the first two games, he took over in game No. 3 and held the Cardinals’ starting spot for the rest of the season.

Rosen threw for 2,278 yards and 11 touchdowns, as well as 14 interceptions and lost 10 fumbles, good for sixth in the league. His 66.7 passer rating ranked deadlast in the NFL, as did his 26.6 quarterback rating.

Under Rosen, the Cardinals finished with the league’s worst record at 13-3, clinching the No. 1 overall pick in the 2019 NFL Draft. Although Rosen was sacked on average over three times per game – including four games in which he took five or more sacks – Arizona is unanimously mocked to take Ohio State defensive end Nick Bosa.

Bradford, the Cardinals’ week one starter last season, was released in November, leaving Rosen and Mike Glennon as the only quarterbacks left on the roster. Bradford won’t be the only Cardinal leaving town, however.

Arizona fired coach Steve Wilks following its final game, and offensive coordinator Mike McCoy was fired in October. At UCLA, Rosen had three play-callers in three seasons, and he could be on his third NFL offensive coordinator by the start of next season.

Beach volleyball
Joy Hong, assistant Sports editor

Sarah Sponcil continues to add hardware to her international collection.

The senior for UCLA beach volleyball partnered up with Kelly Claes – who graduated from USC in 2017 – and finished second at the FIVB four-star tournament in The Hague, Netherlands. The duo earned third place at the FIVB three-star tournament in Qinzhou, China, in October.

Sponcil and Claes got past U.S. teammates Emily Day and Betsi Flint, despite falling 21-13 in the first set. The team bounced back in the second and third sets, winning 21-19, 15-9 in the second round of the main draw.

The pair swept Spain’s Liliana Fernandez and Elsa Baquerizo 21-19, 25-23 on Saturday, advancing to the semifinals. Sponcil and Claes continued their run in a three-set thriller over Finland’s Anniina Parkkinen and Taru Lahti-Liukkonen, winning 21-19, 21-18, 15-8.

In the gold-medal match, the duo fell 21-10, 21-18 to Brazil’s Ana Patricia Silva and Rebecca Cavalcanti. But the pair had the best tournament finish among all Team USA teams, with two-time Olympic medalist April Ross and Alix Klineman finishing fourth.

Sponcil will be back with the Bruins, who start competing Feb. 21 against Cal Poly for UCLA’s season opener.

Softball
Angie Forburger, assistant Sports editor

Three Bruins are now National Team members.

Redshirt junior pitcher Rachel Garcia and UCLA alums Ally Carda and Delaney Spaulding were named to the 2019 USA Softball Women’s National Team, USA Softball announced Monday. The three athletes are part of an 18-athlete roster that will eventually be finalized into a 15-player roster for the 2019 Pan American Games.

Carda – who was a member of UCLA softball from 2012-2015 – has played with USA Softball for four seasons, with this selection marking her fifth straight season. Carda has taken home five gold medals, three silver and one bronze.

Spaulding – a part of the Bruins’ roster from 2014-2017 – made the National Team for the fourth straight time. She competed for USA Softball at the WBSC Women’s Softball World Championship in 2018 and hit .308, recording two home runs and nine RBIs.

This recognition marks Garcia’s second straight USA Softball Women’s National Team selection. Garcia assisted the U.S. in their gold-medal win and helped them qualify for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games when she recorded a 1.05 ERA at the 2018 WBSC Women’s Softball World Championship.

Last season with the Bruins, Garcia took home the espnW and USA Softball National player of the year awards. She led UCLA in the circle with a 1.31 ERA and batted .339 with 11 home runs and 54 RBIs.

Garcia and the rest of this year’s Bruins will begin the 2019 season at the Hawaii Paradise Classic on Feb. 7.

Swim and dive jumps into new year taking first place in doubleheader meet

After five weeks away from the pool, UCLA has started 2019 with a win.

UCLA swim and dive (5-0) took home first place in a doubleheader meet against Harvard (4-1) and University of San Diego (4-3) at Spieker Aquatics Center.

“People were extremely focused on the controllables of the meet,” said swimming and diving coach Cyndi Gallagher. “They made choices about their attitude and that has been really great.”

During the five weeks the team was not competing, Gallagher said they were focusing on their training and being the best team that they could be.

“All the team did was eat, swim and sleep these past five weeks,” Gallagher said. “But they are feeling really confident with that work and getting to know their teammates better.”

Freshman Claire Grover earned a B cut at the Georgia Fall Invitational in both the 50-yard freestyle and 100-yard breaststroke. A B cut means if a player is in the top 39, they qualify for NCAA. In the 50-yard freestyle, Grover received a top-13 finish and in the 100-yard breaststroke, a team-best eighth place.

“These past couple of meets I’ve been trying to accept that if I fail it is alright,” Grover said. “I have to realize that I will practice it next week.”

Grover walked away from Monday’s meet with two wins in the 100-yard freestyle with a time of 51.10 and the 100-yard breaststroke with a time of 1:02.73.

“We’ve been incredibly encouraging and really energetic,” Grover said. “Just having winter training has made us stronger.”

Junior Amy Okada finished Monday with a win in both the 100-yard and 200-yard butterfly with times of 55.10 and 2:01.50, respectively.

“I really want to improve my race strategy and (finalize) it for meets,” Okada said. “This meet was a good time to apply what I did winter training.”

Junior Kenisha Liu walked away with a win in the 200-yard freestyle with her season-best time of 1:47.82.

On the diving side, redshirt senior Maria Polyakova finished first for UCLA in the 3-meter with a score of 326.10 and sophomore Alice Yanovsky finished third with 275.15.

Senior Traci Shiver finished in seventh place in the 3-meter with a score of 254.50. Senior Madeline Russell clinched her season-best score of 232.40 to win 10th place.

For the 1-meter, Polyakova finished in first place with a score of 317.75. This was her second-best score of the season, with her best being 355.50 on Nov. 3.

UCLA swimming will return to Spieker Aquatics Center Friday for a doubleheader meet against UC Santa Barbara and UC San Diego. UCLA diving will be competing in the Bruin Diving Invitational on Jan. 18.

Gymnastics starts season strong, talks goals following 2018 NCAA championship win

The Bruins have begun their fight to get back on top.

After coming from behind to clinch UCLA’s 115th NCAA title last season, No. 1 UCLA gymnastics (1-0) began their season Friday with a win over No. 11 Nebraska (0-1) in Pauley Pavilion. The Bruins recorded a final score of 197.250 – the highest score posted by the Bruins in their opening meet since 2005.

“Every year has been the same cycle: preseason and then training to evolve, but it never quite happens for us,” said junior Kyla Ross. “But, this year is different because I decided that I’m gonna do whatever it takes for us to get back to the top and I feel it.”

Coach Valorie Kondos Field announced in September she would be retiring after 36 years in the UCLA athletic department and leading UCLA gymnastics to seven national championships.

Kondos Field said her goal for the team in her final season is to be cognizant of the depth of their roster.

“We always want to hit 24 for 24 routines and to stay healthy,” Kondos Field said. “If we have someone who’s great but their body is hurting them, thank God we’re so deep, because we will put someone else in.”

Kondos Field added that the Bruins do not find it hard to remain focused in their season-opening meet despite their big win in April.

“We’ve been so high for so long that I was worried that would turn our nature out of bounds and we would go flying off the equipment,” Kondos Field said. “But, they were remarkable. They’ve hit the big stuff. They just got ahead of themselves a bit.”

UCLA graduated five seniors at the end of the 2018 season and has added four new freshman recruits to its current squad – two of whom have represented the U.S. gymnastics team in international competitions.

The Bruins now have four seniors – Brielle Nguyen, Katelyn Ohashi, Stella Savvidou and Macy Toronjo – who hope to lead the team to victory once again. Ohashi said she was going to put in the effort to ensure that her team is strong this season.

“I think the leadership role has been the hardest part of the season so far,” Ohashi said. “We’ve struggled because there aren’t many seniors this year. Maybe it’s because we’re literally the shortest class or maybe we aren’t intimidating enough, but I know there’s a lot I need to learn about leading and I plan to do that.”

The Bruins will continue their season at the Collegiate Challenge powered by Under Armour in Anaheim on Saturday. They will be competing against No. 9 California, No. 6 Michigan State and No. 14 UC Davis.

“It doesn’t matter if we win in January, we have to win in April,” Kondos Field said. “But, you know, we’re planning on winning them all.”

Gabe’s Grumbles: Men’s volleyball has opportunity to find balance between new, experienced players

The 2019 season is set to feature new faces on the volleyball court.

No. 2 UCLA men’s volleyball has entered the new season, not necessarily in a rebuilding year phase after the success of last season, but instead has to balance new players with the leftovers from last year’s team.

Only time will tell to see how far players develop and what lineup decisions coach John Speraw makes along the way.

Three of the starting six and a number of bench players advanced to the NCAA championship final with the Bruins last season, losing in a five-set thriller to Long Beach State. Those three starters are junior middle blocker Daenan Gyimah, senior setter Micah Ma’a and senior outside hitter Dylan Missry.

Ma’a is pivotal to the Bruins’ success this season as he orchestrates plays and helps new players fit into the offense. Last season he finished fourth in the nation in assists with 10.55 per set en route to earning first-team AVCA and VolleyMob honors.

Gyimah led the nation with a .528 hitting percentage and was awarded the Ryan Millar Award for the nation’s best middle attacker. Don’t expect the productivity of those two to change, as they remain two of the best in the nation in their respective positions.

Those experienced members provided stability while new changes were made, for instance, sophomore libero Garland Peed split time with freshman libero/outside hitter Cole Pender in the match against UC San Diego.

Two new players who featured in the first two games of the season were not freshmen. Junior outside hitter Austin Matautia and redshirt junior opposite Brandon Rattray both transferred from Hawai’i this season and have found early success fitting into the UCLA starters. The duo posting a combined 37 kills against unranked Princeton and UC San Diego last week.

Of course, there will be adjustment pains as the duo fits into a completely new system and team, but the transfers bring experience. Rattray appeared in 12 matches last season and averaged two kills while Matautia appeared in 25 matches and hit for .349. These new starters have experience against the best in the nation, including a 3-2 defeat of then-undefeated Long Beach State on April 14, 2018.

One question will be who fills the hole left by opposite Christian Hessenauer in the starting six. Hessenauer undertook a large scoring volume last season and finished with 395 kills off a .307 hitting percentage. Missry had ample playing time as a junior, splitting time with outside hitter Jake Arnitz for periods of last season, and has 23 kills in two games so far this season. Missry could be set to fill in that scoring role.

The Bruins came close to winning their 20th title last season and will face a similarly challenging route to return to the championship match again.

However, the team will offer the leftovers from last year a chance to gel with new players through recruiting and program pedigree. That’s exciting.

Dance film symposium to showcase intersection of choreography, cinematography

Eight-year-old Axe’Re Shallowhorn recorded a film of his mother dancing at the beach, throwing sand in front of the camera for special effect.

The film, entitled “Entre Terre et Ciel,” or “Between Earth and Sky,” will be screened on the first day of the Depth of Field festival hosted by the UCLA Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance. Taking place Wednesday through Friday, there will be dance films screened on the first day, a performance the following day and a Q&A with professional dance filmmakers to wrap up the festival on Friday. Mitchell Rose, one of the filmmakers involved with the festival, said many people misperceive dance films as simply videos of someone dancing, but they are more complex than holding a camera and recording choreography face-on.

“When you get involved in dance film, you have to shed your old dance thinking because it’s not just going to be filming a piece of dance. You have to think of it as a film,” he said. “I think many people who make dance films still have that dance thinking.”

Thinking about dance films solely in terms of dance, he said, often involves capturing the whole body in each shot and focusing on movements, like a flexed foot, by keeping the camera close enough to film such details. People who focus on just the dance also tend to shoot the choreography from just one angle similar to the view of someone watching a dancer on stage. Film thinking differs in that the angles range more and the editing of the shots is part of the choreography of the dance, he said.

Margaret Williams, another filmmaker participating in the festival, said she teaches a world arts and cultures/dance class on experimental dance films in which she likes to focus on the difference between stage dances and dance films. Stage lighting is often used to cut to different dancers and is more limiting than what editing allows for in video formats, she said. Because of the difference, she said, filming also focuses less on the whole body, since cameras can hone in on more intimate details than an audience can from their vantage point.

“What you have to think about is what the choreography looks like through a camera lens. … You could use a close-up, you could do choreography just on the face,” she said. “It doesn’t have to be (the) whole body.”

Both Rose’s and Williams’ dance films will be played on the third day of the Depth of Field festival, but a few other filmmakers’ creations will also grace the screen earlier in the week. Lecturer Vanessa Verdoodt, who teaches at the Geffen Academy at UCLA, is Shallowhorn’s mother as well as the co-producer and featured dancer in their film. She said using the video format for her choreography not only allowed for special effects like the falling sand, but it also enabled her to layer text onto the screen that commented on environmental stability.

Beyond special effects, filming dance allowed other dance filmmakers like Sarah Elgart and doctoral candidate in culture and performance Jingqiu Guan to capture choreographies they said were not possible to perform on stage. For Elgart, it was a film inspired by both the architecture of a building called VIA 57 WEST as well as a sculpture in New York. Her dance could only have been created in reaction to the area it was created, she said.

“I wanted the film to breathe and … respond to the music and architecture and sculpture,” she said. “I could never recreate that film on a stage because it’s an indirect response to the site and the sculpture.”

While Elgart’s piece was created in reaction to the city, one of Guan’s films came about as a result of watching her child. Her one-month-old baby, she noticed, was making small, impulsive movements that made Guan want to focus on dance films that involved no choreography – just edited videos of daily life. The result was a film comprised of close-ups of her child’s limbs moving around, and she said she chose to use angles that provided mystery by not showing her child in full, which is different from the full-body choreographies of stage performances.

“I tried to capture his movements with different angles and edit it together to his own heartbeat,” she said. “Sometimes (his movements) coincide with the rhythm of the heartbeat, and at times (they don’t).”

Rose said dance film differs from theatrical dance because it does not have to be set around a specific time or location, like a stage. Instead, it is a type of dance that is completely separate from live dance choreographies in that it must be approached from the lens of a filmmaker. In the films, dances do not have to be choreographed to face just one way because the camera can move, and he said editing is what separates dance choreography from filmed choreography.

“Dance film, I should point out, isn’t just filming existing choreography. It’s individual elements put together so the overall effect is you feel like you’re watching a dance, but there isn’t often a piece of choreography you’re watching,” Rose said. “The editing is the choreography.”

Budding Los Angeles: Westwood’s Field of Dreams dispensary welcomes visitors with relaxing aesthetic

Thirty years ago, buying cannabis was difficult, expensive and illegal. Buying cannabis in 2019 is somewhere between picking up a prescription from a pharmacy and buying beer from a liquor store. Join columnist John Tudhope each week as he visits a cannabis company in Los Angeles and discusses the budding industry.

Cannabis retail locations, commonly known as dispensaries, are perhaps the most visible businesses in LA’s newly emerging recreational cannabis industry. These businesses connect consumers and producers, carry some of the most meticulously crafted products in the cannabis world and are at the forefront of normalizing cannabis consumption.

When I visited a newly opened dispensary on Westwood Boulevard, the atmosphere felt particularly welcoming and artistic, a far cry from some dispensaries that can feel like a hybrid between a doctor’s office and a prison. The Field of Dreams dispensary combines a traditional dispensary setup with an art gallery space and reminded me more of a tattoo shop than a cannabis business.

Like many of the 170 legal cannabis dispensaries in LA County, the newly opened Field of Dreams has a waiting room where a security guard checks ID and a secondary room where customers can view and buy products. The dispensary carries traditional smokable “flower,” THC- and CBD-infused edibles and topical creams, vaporizer cartridges, and concentrates.

These products are a far cry from the cannabis that used to come in crumpled baggies from someone’s backpack. Smokable cannabis comes in small glass jars, vaporizer pens come in high tech-looking boxes and topical creams come in lotion bottles.

In case you’re new to the subject, in 1996, California was the first state in the nation to legalize cannabis for medical use. Following Washington and Colorado’s successful 2012 legalization efforts, California voters passed Proposition 64 in 2016, legalizing cannabis for adult recreational use.

Cannabis is still a federally controlled substance, but as legalization efforts succeed across the nation, federal law enforcement agencies are putting minimal effort into pursuing users and businesses that comply with state and local laws.

Cannabis retail businesses in LA must have both state and city licenses to sell cannabis legally. In order to acquire a state license, businesses must have protocols in place for transporting the cannabis securely, taking inventory, ensuring product quality, securing the business location and disposing of waste. The products must be packaged in childproof containers and tested at a state-licensed laboratory. It is illegal for cannabis dispensaries to allow any type of on-site consumption.

Field of Dreams is a space for people who did not consume cannabis under prohibition as well as longtime users, said owner Glen Choi. Choi said his budtenders are knowledgeable on the products they carry and that the dispensary would like to eventually have cannabis classes open to the public.

Choi, an art collector and music industry veteran, said he wants to take his experience in the studio, where it is essential to create a relaxing environment, and use it to make customers comfortable when buying cannabis.

“We make it very friendly by design,” he said. “No more days of the buzzer doors.”

Choi said it is essential for first-time users to educate themselves about cannabis products before going to a dispensary to purchase them. He said websites like Leafly and Weedmaps are effective places to begin understanding what types of cannabis products are available and what their intended effects are. Choi recommends first-time users to take cannabis slowly and start with a low dose.

“First know what’s happening in yourself, what you are seeking, then research online,” he said. “Then call your local dispensary, and go in yourself and vibe it out.”

A list of LA’s legally operating cannabis businesses is available at the Department of Cannabis Regulation’s website.

Comics event to introduce students to new interests, opportunities

A Pakistani Ms. Marvel and the real-life founder of Planned Parenthood are protagonists of graphic novels that will be showcased at University of Comics, Los Angeles.

UCLA Residential Life is putting on the event as part of Geek Week, the school’s annual celebration of fandom and entertainment. University of Comics will take place Tuesday from 6 to 8 p.m. in the De Neve plaza room, where ResLife will showcase a large collection of selected graphic novels and comics borrowed from various owners. Sarah Molitoris, resident director for Rieber Terrace and co-chair of the Geek Week planning committee, said the event will be a place for students to learn more about different comic genres and how to succeed creating comics professionally.

“We felt like we weren’t hitting comics as much as we wanted to (at Geek Week in recent years),” Molitoris said. “We wanted to give artistic students a space to explore that and students who may not be as artistic to learn more about comics in general.”

University of Comics will feature professional comic artists as they create artwork live, with students invited to doodle alongside them. Top Cow, a comic book publishing company headed by UCLA alumnus Matt Hawkins, will host a panel discussion at the event to advise students on how to succeed as writers, artists or publishers in the comics industry. The majority of the event space will be dedicated to the curated comics and graphic novels collection. With this collection, Molitoris said she’s interested in introducing students to lesser-known types of graphic novels that they didn’t realize they were interested in.

“We’re going to have a pretty wide breadth of different kinds of comics paired with some classics,” Molitoris said. “So people can kind of see things that look familiar, and then see things that are probably radically different for them.”

Molitoris said many people don’t fully understand the variety of content that comics and graphic novels offer. For example, she only recently discovered Powell Library’s series of manga books intended to educate college students on subjects like calculus, statistics and environmental studies – topics said she said she didn’t expect to be covered in comics.

Comics can also provide insight into perspectives from people around the world and throughout history. “Woman Rebel: The Margaret Sanger Story,” a biographical graphic novel about the birth control pioneer and women’s rights activist, will be one such comic exhibited at the event. Molitoris said reading informative graphic novels about historical figures like Sanger has been eye-opening for someone who used to think graphic novels were just about superheroes. But she said even the superhero comics tell valuable stories, citing the most recent iteration of “Ms. Marvel” – which focuses on a Pakistani Muslim teenager following in the footsteps of her idol, Captain Marvel – as a powerful coming-of-age story about identity.

“There are so many voices being represented in comics. I think that a lot of people think it’s just about capes and masks,” Molitoris said. “But in reality, comics and graphic novels are telling really complex stories about people and their multiple identities in ways that can’t be fully represented in just literature.”

Molitoris referenced Marjane Satrapi’s autobiographical graphic novel, “Persepolis,” as another example of a complex perspective enhanced by its presentation as a comic. The book, which will appear at the event, focuses on Satrapi’s childhood in Iran during the Islamic Revolution, juxtaposing a cartoonish art style with its wartime setting.

“Thinking about how (the conflict) looked and felt from a child’s or a young adult’s perspective and being able to see the visuals that she drew to go with that time in her life, I think is really impactful,” Molitoris said.

Henry Barajas, director of operations at Top Cow, agreed the unique combination of visuals and text is what sets graphic novels apart from other art mediums. For example, he said Top Cow’s “Think Tank” comic includes a scene in which one character can read his colleague’s mind. The illustration shows an X-ray of his colleague’s brain, pinpointing parts of his mind.

The Top Cow panel will particularly focus on how people can succeed in publishing their own comics, which Molitoris said may seem daunting to students who might believe comic publishing must go through media giants like Marvel or DC.

“We’re hoping to inspire people but also to be inspired by the new generation and workforce that’s going to change the world,” Barajas said.

Tomás Morales, a third-year exchange student from Chile studying film, said he is interested in comics because they’re a form of visual storytelling just like filmmaking. He said he is excited that the Geek Week committee is providing such an opportunity to students interested in storytelling media.

“I really like the fact that here at UCLA there are events that encourage student participation in respects that are not purely academic,” Morales said. “Where I come from, it’s not common to have these kinds of events in college.”

Molitoris hopes the event will broaden student horizons when it comes to graphic novels and comics. She said she hopes the average student will discover there’s probably a graphic novel or comic they’ve never heard of that they would be interested in reading.

“There are so many different ways that the medium can be used to help people learn or understand things from a different perspective, and we really want to highlight that,” Molitoris said.