Daily Bruin – Page 42

CAPS continues to deflect blame for its lack of available mental health services

May is Mental Health Awareness month. With Snapchat filters and student programming focused on mindfulness and suicide prevention, it would be easy to believe mental health is a priority at UCLA.

That is, unless you’re seeking long-term treatment.

The UCLA Counseling and Psychological Services center is the on-campus provider for mental health services. According to its website, it provides “short-term, high-quality” treatment for students.

But calling it short-term treatment is an understatement, and it’s definitely not high-quality. CAPS provides a maximum of six appointments each academic year for students covered by University of California Student Health Insurance Policy and three for those without. Students whose psychological needs are not met in a mere six sessions can be referred to outpatient treatment, covered by Anthem providers.

The American Psychological Association indicates that, on average, 15 to 20 sessions are required for 50% of patients to recover. At the bare minimum, patients need 12 to 16 weekly sessions to show significant improvement. Most patients need 20 to 30 sessions over six months to achieve more complete remission.

So even calling CAPS’ services “short-term” is generous.

The shortcomings of on-campus treatment options are made worse by CAPS’ negligence to ensure off-campus providers treat students adequately and in a timely manner. Instead, the center continues to shuffle patients through its short-term care to other providers, without indication that they are able to fully complete treatment.

One such provider is Acacia Counseling & Wellness in Westwood. Publicly, CAPS executive director Nicole Green said Acacia is not a formal partner to CAPS.

“They are one group practice office in our area we refer to,” Green said. “Given their proximity to our campus, many students seek services there. However, we ask that all of our clinicians provide students with at least three referral sources so to not perceive Acacia is their only option.”

Most other off-campus providers are inaccessible, making Acacia the obvious choice for students who don’t want to pay exorbitant out-of-pocket appointment fees and high transportation costs. The Acacia appointment request form even asks for students’ UCLA ID number and their UC SHIP information.

Moreover, navigating CAPS’ provider database, which allows students to search for an in-network provider and specify the kind of treatment they are looking for, is hardly a simple task. The database is often out of date – some providers’ profiles were not updated for over a year. Acacia is nearby and open, making it one of students’ most attractive options.

And yet, in an email sent to prospective patients, Acacia indicated wait times are now as much as five to six weeks as the center is at full capacity. Acacia’s main purpose is to serve students in recognition of the fact that CAPS is overflowing. It’s done this at several other campuses, such as UCSB and UCSD.

Long wait times for few appointments are at the root of CAPS’ failure to help students. The fact that private practices like Acacia are being clogged up too is far worse, since students are going further out of their way after initiating treatment – only to be shut down again.

It’s already hard enough for students to recognize if they need the assistance of a mental health professional. Long wait times and few appointments only further deter students from seeking help in the first place.

Green indicated she was not aware of Acacia’s lengthy wait times, despite also saying that the CAPS coordinator polls community clinicians in its database weekly to determine which providers have openings.

Either the CAPS coordinator is not fulfilling the job description, or all of the off-campus providers are overfilled and students are continuing to be pushed into these nonexistent off-campus programs – and both are unacceptable.

The long wait times are not Acacia’s fault: It’s a private practice with no obligation to serve just UCLA students. Rather, its congestion is just a symptom of a larger problem of insufficient psychotherapy options for students.

In other words, it’s merely dealing with CAPS’ mess.

Additionally, the negligence of CAPS in understanding the wait times of community providers while acting like it’s easy for students to find an off-campus provider reflects a deep-seated disregard for the reality students face, like how difficult it is for them to contact these providers or set up appointments with providers they like who are covered by UC SHIP.

And instead of backing down or acknowledging the shortcomings of its own services or its providers, CAPS acts like students are the ones to blame for not being able to navigate this maze. But in reality, students face obstacles at every turn. That cavalier mentality only proves UCLA and CAPS’ administrators care little if students are treated fully – only if they’re no longer taking up a seat at the CAPS center.

Until the university acknowledges these flaws, students will have to to deal with their mental health issues via Snapchat filters and once-a-year events.

Mind Your Business: UC schools should address mental health together, not apart

UCLA is an institution with many moving parts. Something that goes under the radar, though: its side business ventures that don’t directly relate to its educational mission. In this series, staff columnist Mariah Furtek looks at how the blue-and-gold laden university’s often questionable cash grabs affect the campus and local community.

College students across the nation are seeking help. Faced with depression or anxiety, they visit psychological support centers in search of counseling.

With thousands of students turning to campus counseling for help, universities find themselves tasked with the unprecedented responsibility of treating a national mental health crisis – while facing high staff turnover rates and overburdened campus resources.

Most of the attention surrounding this emergency focuses on the inadequate response by universities and the long waiting lists at campus support centers, which stretch on for weeks. But that’s asking the wrong question.

Instead, we need to ask: What is it about the university environment that pushes young adults past their breaking point?

The answer lies in the numbers.

A data-driven, University of California-wide initiative would help us better understand what’s driving this mental health crisis. This program would provide a clear timeline for which statistics should be collected and analyzed as well as dedicated funding for in-house researchers at each campus counseling center. This centralized structure would prove more efficient and effective than campus-level initiatives.

The statistics about increasing mental health issues among university students speak to a terrifying truth about well-being on college campuses.

According to the 2015 annual report by the Center for Collegiate Mental Health, the growth rate of the number of counseling center appointments increased at a rate sevenfold greater than enrollment growth. In the 2017 National College Health Assessment by the American College Health Association, 86.5% of students reported feeling overwhelmed during the last 12 months at the time they were surveyed. More than 60% of students described themselves as feeling very lonely during the last year. And more than half reported feeling hopeless.

More than 40% of students said they had difficulty functioning because they were so depressed, according to a 2018 report by the American College Health Association.

“All of the data, both nationally and locally, is showing increased stress, increased experiences of anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts amongst our college students,” said Gary Dunn, the director of Counseling & Psychological Services at UC Santa Cruz.

These issues negatively impact academic performance. According to a recent report by EAB, a data-collection and analysis firm that works with more than 1,500 schools, students with mild to severe depression and anxiety experience an average decrease of 0.4 in their GPA. This has an especially catastrophic impact on graduate students.

“Graduate students utilize our services at some of the highest rates of any demographic,” said Paul Kim, the director of counseling services at UC Davis.

To deal with these issues, students often turn to on-campus counseling centers as one-stop shops for their mental health needs. But these facilities were designed to provide short-term support for emergent mental health problems, not long-term care. Campus counseling centers aren’t designed to support students with a history of serious mental health issues.

“So much gets put on the counseling programs, we are really just dealing with the downstream impact of a lot of other decisions that are made institutionally,” Dunn said. “We need to be developing university systems that work for everyone.”

According to an EAB report, half of the students seeking treatment on campus have received prior counseling. These students can overwhelm on-campus counseling centers: One-fifth of counseling center clients, for example, account for half of all individual therapy appointments.

And throwing more money and staff at the issue isn’t going to solve anything.

“We have to work with the university on what is causing stress, what is causing anxiety and address it on a more systemic basis and help our students as a whole to develop the coping skills they need to be successful,” Dunn said.

There’s already plenty of data to work with.

All UC counseling centers, for example, use Point and Click Solutions, an electronic medical records system. From these records, data can be collected anonymously and aggregately to determine campus-specific and systemwide mental health trends.

Campus counseling centers also fill out an assessment following each appointment describing the level of a student’s mental health issues. This survey is operated by the Center for Collegiate Mental Health, which studies national mental health trends. UCLA used this data to help justify increasing student fees by 2.5% to fund mental health services.

Individual campuses are also taking initiative to better understand student mental health concerns.

UCLA, for example, is undertaking a Depression Grand Challenge aimed to cut depression in half by 2050. And UC Berkeley is researching the causes underlying anxiety.

But these projects need to take place within a systemwide framework to ensure campus resources and staff aren’t diverted from critical mental health care.

“You need people who are able to analyze that data. And right now, CAPS is just so overrun,” said Dani Lowder, a third-year political science student.

Lowder serves as the vice chair of UCLA’s Student Health Advisory Committee, a member of the Bruin Mental Health Advisory Committee and the sole undergraduate representative for the UC’s Student Mental Health Oversight Committee.

“There is a lot of preventative care that UCLA would love to do but there is not the time and staff right now,” she said.

The centralized structure of the University would allow it to set clear goals for the initiative and divide the main areas of research among its campuses. Distributing the workload across the system would speed up the research process, making the money spent on this initiative more impactful in the long run.

“I think a lot can be done by digging into the data that we have,” Dunn said. “The information is there, and we could put more time and energy into understanding what it can tell us.”

Dunn said the counseling center at UCSC is looking to hire a graduate student researcher to more deeply analyze the data it has collected.

Granted, this research project may take time. But we need to prioritize long-term solutions instead of applying Band-Aids on a gaping wound. Determining what brings students through the counseling center doors will help shape more proactive mental health resources that can divert some of the traffic in counseling centers.

After all, if we don’t start looking for the cause of this crisis, we can’t ever expect to solve it.

Movie review: Cultural authenticity in ‘Always Be My Maybe’ spices up rom-com genre

For once, Keanu Reeves is unlikable.

The actor briefly appears in “Always Be My Maybe,” the latest Netflix original film set to hit the streaming service and select theaters Friday. Reeves plays himself in a parallel world where, rather than assuming the role of a heroic or charming lead, he’s a pretentious jerk, reciting lines like, “The only stars that matter are the ones you see when you dream.”

The actor’s character is starkly juxtaposed with Marcus (Randall Park), the pot-smoking lead singer of a group he started in high school. Despite being a decent band – listening to Park rap ridiculous lyrics is one of the highlights of the film – the group’s stuck in a rut, playing in the same San Francisco venues it did when the members were adolescents.

Marcus, 34, still lives with his Korean father in his childhood home, drives his beat-up high school car and works in the family air-conditioning business. He is the quintessential man who chooses not to grow up. And while the role treads a fine line between relatable and irritating, it is brought to life by Park who is hilarious, adding a down-to-earth humility to the character.

This is not the case for Sasha (Ali Wong), Marcus’ childhood-best-friend-turned-celebrity-chef. She is lost in the world of fancy food, dubbing her cuisine “transdenominational” when discussing its potential mass appeal. In one instance, she states her menus will be on rice paper because “white people eat that shit up.”

The social commentary here is clear. The film mocks the way in which Asian food has been exoticized to appeal to non-Asians, yet it also reveals Sasha’s complacency in this cultural appropriation. In Marcus’ mind, Sasha has forgotten who she is. He calls her out on her catchphrase – “elevating Asian food” – deeming it an effort to Westernize Asian dishes rather than celebrate them in their authentic form.

The two friends didn’t always have this tension between them. The film’s opening scenes depict Sasha and Marcus as carefree children, hinting at the romance that could grow between them. But after Marcus’ mother dies during their senior year of high school, the two stop speaking – a silence that lasts 16 years.

The film then picks up when an older Sasha is dumped by her famous fiance and manager Brandon (Daniel Dae Kim). In the wake of the breakup, Sasha moves from Los Angeles back to her hometown of San Francisco to prepare for the opening of her new restaurants. She is reunited with Marcus and his father when they install an air conditioner in her temporary San Francisco home. After several years apart, the two former friends struggle to reconnect, a stark contrast to the opening scenes in which they sit underneath the Golden Gate Bridge, share snacks and play dress-up.

One of the most poignant aspects of the film is its depiction of the relationship between Marcus’ family and Sasha. Often left alone as a child, Sasha found a second home in Marcus’ family and even learned the joys of cooking from Marcus’ mother. In a way, this strong connection Sasha develops with the family during her formative years makes it hard to believe she would forget the people who essentially raised her. Sasha’s decision to leave Marcus’ family in the past becomes an almost implausible plot point. Despite this, Wong infuses humor to the character through her effective delivery of witty dialogue. Her comedic skill meshes well with Park’s throughout the entirety of the film.

Written by UCLA alumni Wong and Park themselves, the film received a ton of buzz when it was announced, and rightfully so. The rom-com is composed of an almost entirely Asian American cast and crew. Such authentic representation depicted in the film is essentially its largest selling point, as it doesn’t rely on typical stereotypes to mold the characters.

The film proves that Asian American actors can be not only the leading stars in a romantic comedy, but also the secondary characters – who, besides Reeves, all happen to be people of color, none of whom are type-casted. Marcus’ bandmate, Tony, is played by Indian actor Karan Soni, who also appears in “Deadpool 2.” And instead of being a cab-driving caricature with a thick accent, Tony is simply an ordinary guy who smokes weed, loses 50 pounds and plays in a band – no racial stereotypes required.

Following the success of critically acclaimed films like “Crazy Rich Asians” and Lulu Wang’s “The Farewell,” “Always Be My Maybe” is yet another clear indication that movies with a predominantly Asian American cast are not only entertaining, but also a necessary inclusion in Hollywood, seeing as audiences clearly support these projects. With awkward car sex scenes, touching father-son moments and a crazy Reeves, the film is a welcome addition to the growing Netflix rom-com repertoire. In its 101-minute run time, “Always Be My Maybe” is a breeze to get through, with both humorous and emotional moments expressing its core theme: the importance of remembering your roots, no matter where life may take you.

Student-run artist collective CMMND to feature integrative art at EP release party

CMMND will sell basketball shorts, with five color options, in promotion of the artist collective’s first music record.

The upcoming five-song EP features over a dozen musicians, many of whom are UCLA students. An album release party in Tom Bradley International Hall will accompany the release of “The CMMND EP” on Friday night, when the group will also sell merchandise. Tobey Lee, a third-year psychobiology student and a founding member of the organization, said its goal is to provide an avenue for students to express themselves artistically, regardless of how their talents manifest.

“CMMND is a community collective that aims to spread the message that anyone can be a creative,” Lee said. “No matter if you’re a pre-med, no matter what background you come from, there’s always some form of creativity inside of someone.”

Heading the EP, executive producers Seiji Oda and Coleman Bryant made the beats and are featured on songs throughout the release. Oda, a third-year world arts and cultures student, said about 20 people worked on the project, including background vocalists, instrumentalists and rappers. Because many of those involved are students, Lee said they are often not labeled as “artists.” To combat the false dichotomy, the collective created the EP.

“The Way,” the first song on “The CMMND EP,” lists five featured artists. And with 15 musical artists singing on the record overall, Bryant, a second-year political science student, said the writing process centered around both an individual and collaborative effort. On each song, a select amount of artists wrote their own verses but collaborated to create the chorus.

“‘The Way’ sounded like something we wanted a bunch of people to sing to (and) a bunch of people involved in,” Bryant said. “So after that, the direction we went with (the EP) was trying to get a bunch of artists from different places involved in the project to tie in the whole idea of community.”

But the collective is involved in more than music, having also delved into fashion, radio and photography. In 2018, CMMND also opened a pop-up clothing shop in which it displayed photographs by student artists, Lee said. The group will sell merchandise at the release party while an interactive projection display created by students at UCLA’s Creative Labs will cover a wall.

“We’re planning to have an immersive environment reflective of the EP,” Lee said. “Music itself is auditory, and we wanted to create a visual space that represents that to display the music.”

The music visualizer, he said, provides another layer of art for the event, as visualizers usually capture a song’s beats through bright animations that move in response to the music. Echoing the collective’s belief that students of any background can be creative, Lee said the Creative Labs projection will function as a backdrop for attendees to take photos with. The visuals will depict the EP’s Southern California influence, which Oda said is captured in the laid-back, beach vibe.

“Pure science and technology in general has such a big role in art, and I knew Creative Labs has a bunch of great designers and stuff,” Lee said. “I wanted that aspect – that people in computer science who make your phones or are developers have a creative mind.”

Members of CMMND also co-produced a music video for a song called “TRAPANESE” by lil ricefield. Oda features on the song and acts in the video, while Lee – whose photography and videography persona is Karl Perkins – helped direct it. The video, which follows lil ricefield’s rap journey after finding and wearing a magical golden grill, was released May 24 and garnered over 680,000 views in under seven days.

While the collective’s branding and fashion-focused aspects formed early on, Oda said CMMND now focuses on a more multidisciplinary approach to art through recent projects like the release party and music videos. Oda said the group’s future plans include working on a summer fashion collection and planning a music showcase for Los Angeles artists. As CMMND expands, Lee said he hopes people see it as more than a music or fashion brand, but rather as a collective capable of pushing the envelope through an expansive range of projects.

“(The collective) is a reflection of the creative people in the group, and we try not to limit ourselves. We try to be more broad, connected and intersectional,” Lee said. “I think that’s what the music industry and art in general is moving toward.”

Rev. Lawson’s class hosts ‘teach-in’ to discuss nonviolence in modern activism

Rev. James Lawson said he thinks more nonviolent activism is necessary to eliminate segregation, hatred, violence and fear in the United States.

Lawson was one of the speakers at a “teach-in” organized by students in the course Labor and Workplace Studies M173: “Nonviolence and Social Movements,” which is taught by Lawson, a UCLA lecturer and civil rights activist who worked closely with Martin Luther King Jr. The event featured a series of student group presentations and a panel of social justice directors – all to raise awareness about immigrant rights and sanctuary movements in the United States.

Lawson said he tasked his students with setting up the teach-in so they could gain experience organizing an event centered around activism.

Guillermo Torres, a panelist at the event and director of organizing at Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice, said he thinks activist groups should support one another’s respective causes.

“You must be connected to (all people), and you must go beyond your own people when you see injustice, because each one of us has that common dignity as a human being,” Torres said.

Nana Gyamfi, executive director of the Black Alliance for Just Immigration, said her organization tries to address wide-ranging issues that affect all people and said she encourages students to do the same on campus.

“There’s no issue that is affecting people or the planet, in this country – and in some cases internationally – (in which) we are not doing work in the vein of the struggles that have occurred, so we see ourselves as part of those movements,” she said.

Kent Wong, director of the UCLA Labor Center, said he and Lawson have been teaching the class together for 17 years and have worked together as colleagues for more than 30 years.

Wong said he has seen student activism on campus grow over the years and said he thinks the national impact students have had is inspiring.

“In particular, the immigrant youth of UCLA have had a national impact in advancing the fight for the California DREAM Act and advancing the fight for (the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program), and we’re … so inspired that they’ve embraced the philosophy of nonviolence in taking on these struggles,” Wong said.

Diana Tejeda Gonzalez, a third-year sociology and Chicana and Chicano studies student, said she thinks the panel’s focus on nonviolent change was inspiring, and said she felt a personal connection to the issues discussed.

“I think it’s really important that we talk about these histories and make sure that we could create change as a united group, and having students and panelists present was a very heartwarming experience for me, especially because I am a daughter of immigrants,” Gonzalez said.

Modern student activism should focus on personal and social change, Lawson said.

“The whole issue of compassion and love and human dignity is very important – you can’t have a new society and continue to hate people,” Lawson said. “I think therefore, the need for people to see that and to be engaged in it is critical.”

The Quad: Yerba mate came to California canned and commercialized, but has a storied history

It’s hard to believe yerba mate, cans of which many students chug to get through finals, is the subject of centuries-old South American legends.

Mate is a caffeinated beverage made from dried leaves and twigs of the native South American yerba mate plant with hot water. Though its arrival in California might seem relatively recent, yerba mate has been consumed elsewhere for centuries.

It all dates back to the pre-Columbian era, when the Guarani – a people native to Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil – began to use the herb in medicinal practices. According to their oral history, the Guarani believed that mate preparation had been taught to a native family by the goddess of the moon Yari.

Mate’s powers of wellness were also mythicized. It was believed a shaman once introduced the drink to an aging man who was then revitalized. The Guarani considered mate to be a gift from the gods, a reward for their hard work and values. Mate, seen as a holy drink, was said to be the secret to health.

Mate has transcended both time and geographical borders. After the Spaniards colonized South America, mate became one of the key exports and both its production and consumption skyrocketed in the region as whole.

Social Drinking

Today, mate is a staple of the southern region of South America. Not only is there a National Institute of Yerba Mate in Argentina, statistics show 98% of Argentine households keep the supplies required to make mate.

There, drinking mate is not synonymous with all-nighters or early mornings – it’s ritualistic. There are special utensils, locations and rules for drinking mate. The chopped-up leaves are first arranged in a gourd and wood vessel. The mate is drunk through a bombilla, a straw usually made of stainless steel.

Drinking mate in South America is a social experience. The gourd travels from hand to hand and the bombilla is used by multiple people. It’s a catalyst for conversation, family and community-building. It elevates the phrase “social drinker” to another level.

This begs the question: How did yerba mate make its way all the way from the Southern hemisphere to Westwood, where it’s become a finals week staple for many? Far removed from the social, friendly associations the drink has in its homeland.

Is mate the new coffee?

Be it midterms, finals or that dreaded 8 a.m. class, there are always people carrying around yellow canned yerba mate.

Jay Xu, a first-year physiological science student, said she drinks about two cans of yerba mate a day during finals week.

“It’s a good source of caffeine, but it doesn’t taste bad. I especially don’t like the taste of coffee or the way it makes me feel so yerba mate is a good alternative,” Xu said.

Yerba mate has 80 milligrams of caffeine per cup, which is less than half the amount of caffeine in a cup of coffee. For people who are more caffeine-sensitive, yerba mate provides a bigger boost than black tea, but less of a buzz than a cup of coffee.

This middle ground inspired the founders of popular canned yerba mate brand Guayaki to commercialize the South American product in 1998.

Guayaki Sustainable Rainforest Products Inc., which takes is name from the indigenous Paraguayan people Ache-Guayaki, was founded by two students of California Polytechnic State University. In an interview with Cal Poly Magazine, the brand’s founders said they were looking for a healthier alternative to the coffee students were consuming to stay focused.

Though it has a long and rich history, the yerba mate in the hands of UCLA students was in essence created for college campuses. It was created for students at California universities looking for healthier alternatives to keep up with their workload.

But, how much healthier than coffee is yerba mate?

The Healthy Alternative

Even though it has been around for centuries, yerba mate has only recently been studied scientifically. There is a lot of ambiguity regarding some of the scientific properties of yerba mate.

Recent studies have shown a correlation between drinking yerba mate and antioxidant activity in the body. Yerba mate might prevent cell damage and long-term diseases caused by oxidative stress, such as heart disease, cancer and strokes.

There are other studies linking yerba mate with weight loss, protection against bacteria, cardiovascular protection and more. However, there also exist conflicting studies, and the effects of consuming mate remain ambiguous.

Dena Herman, adjunct assistant professor in the department of community health sciences, said traditional practices of drinking mate, with hot water and a metal straw, promoted some damage to the epithelial tissue and may have been linked to esophageal cancer.

“When they use firewood to heat the water, for example, certain carcinogenic properties can arise. These carcinogens get transferred into the leaves. It really depends on how the mate is processed,” Herman said.

Conversely, some research shows that drinking mate might prevent cancer.

“In fact, mate has substances that help reduce breaks in our DNA and improve DNA repair. However, there is not too much known about the quantity you would have to consume for this to be effective,” Herman said.

As the popularity of yerba mate increases, new research on the long term effects of mate on the human body will likely follow.

For now, it seems like yerba mate exists in competition to the widespread coffee culture at UCLA.

Alyssa Hill, a first-year biochemistry student, said she became curious about mate after seeing it around campus.

“I started drinking it because I saw that everyone else was drinking it. I thought it was good, but I still prefer a cup of coffee,” Hill said.

It remains to be seen whether yerba mate will take over the campus coffee culture. But with flavors like Enlighten Mint, Bluephoria, Orange Exuberance, Lemon Elation and Revel Berry, modern takes on yerba mate are not a hard sell.

The traditional, community-oriented values of yerba mate should not, however, be taken for granted in its commercial resurgence. Just like drinking a cup of coffee with friends, yerba mate’s history shows that it is not simply a source of energy. Rather it could also be a social experience that offers an interesting break from the busy lives of UCLA students.

Baseball looks forward to contest against Omaha for spot in Super Regionals

The Bruins’ road to Omaha will begin against Omaha.

No. 1 seed UCLA baseball (47-8, 24-5 Pac-12) will begin the postseason against Omaha (31-22-1, 20-10-0 Summit League) on Friday in the second game of the Los Angeles Regional. Depending on how the double-elimination weekend plays out, the Bruins may face Loyola Marymount (32-23, 15-12 West Coast Conference) or Baylor (34-17, 14-8 Big-12) to find out who will move on to compete for a spot in the Super Regional next weekend.

“We just got to play every game the same,” said sophomore right-hander Holden Powell. “You can’t overlook any games or think any game is more important than any other one, so it’s really important to go out there and compete to win.”

The Bruins head into the postseason with wins in 26 of their last 28 games and will host their first regional since 2015. Their current 10-game winning streak is their longest of the season, and UCLA has not lost a home game since April 19.

“We’ve been basically playing this last half of the season with that postseason mentality,” Powell said. “We’ve been getting those close-game wins recently, and we’ll take that to the postseason and run with it.”

The Mavericks held the top seed in the Summit League Championship after finishing atop the regular season conference standings. Omaha qualified for regionals after clinching its six-team conference double-elimination tournament, winning three of four to finish the season.

Omaha’s pitching has been led by right-hander Payton Kinney, who has 16 starts, owns an 11-1 record and a Summit League-best 1.65 ERA. Kinney is 2-0 in his previous two starts, and has combined for 13 1/3 scoreless innings with 15 strikeouts in the two games.

Despite failing to win the Big 12 Championship, Baylor earned a spot in the Los Angeles Regional. The Bears led the Big 12 in batting average and least amount of strikeouts at the plate.

LMU qualified for the postseason by winning its conference tournament, but finished fourth in the West Coast Conference after regular season play. The Bruins swept the Lions this season, winning 5-0 at home in February and 9-4 on the road in March.

Last season, the Bruins were eliminated in the Minneapolis Regional and have not made it past regionals since 2013 – the year UCLA won its first and only College World Series. Since their lone national championship, the Bruins are 5-6 in regional play.

“I think that this team has responded from last year,” said coach John Savage. “We left last season behind us and we responded with a (Pac-12) championship, so now it’s a new season and we’re looking to respond some more.”

If UCLA wins Friday night, it will play the winner of the Baylor-LMU matchup Saturday. However, should the Bruins lose their first game, they will play an elimination game Saturday against the loser of that matchup.

“The older guys have mentored (the underclassmen) for this postseason atmosphere,” said freshman catcher Noah Cardenas. “It’s just all positives, and to keep being the same team that we’ve been because there’s not anything more we need to do to go where we need to go.”

The Bruins will begin regional play Friday at 7 p.m. against the Mavericks at Jackie Robinson Stadium.