Upcoming Bay Area meets pivotal for Bruin swim team

David Graham-Caso
Published: Friday, January 31, 2003

Entering the final leg of the 2003 Pac-10 season, the Bruin swim team is diving into choppy water. No. 13 UCLA (5-1, 2-1, Pac-10) travels to the Bay Area this weekend to race in two pivotal conference meets.

It looks to be a difficult road trip. Friday at 1 p.m., the Bruins will take on No. 4 Stanford (5-2, 1-1 Pac-10) at the deGuerre Pool in Palo Alto.

The defending Pac-10 champion Cardinal is led by Tara Kirk, who has never lost a collegiate race in the 100 breaststroke.

Stanford has been a perennial obstacle for the Bruins, defeating UCLA in 20 of their last 21 meets.

“There is a lot of competition up North,” two-time NCAA qualifier Kristin Lewis said.

Friday’s meet is only the beginning of a very competitive weekend for the Bruins. On Saturday, UCLA will pay a visit to No. 9 Cal. The Golden Bears (5-2, 1-1 Pac-10) should also provide UCLA with brutally tough competition, having taken 11-of-20 meets against the Bruins in the all-time series.

Cal is led by junior phenom Natalie Coughlin, a two time NCAA Swimmer of the Year. Coughlin currently holds more American records (33) than years of age (20).

If there was an optimum time for UCLA to face this intimidating competition, it is now.

UCLA is coming off an overwhelming 139-94 victory over the UCSD Tritons last Saturday and is racing in exceptional form.

“The team is swimming very well; we are looking very fast,” junior Taylor Spivey said. “We are excited to swim against these top teams; I think we will give them a run for the money.”

“Every meet we seem to get faster,” head coach Cyndi Gallagher added.

This weekend’s meets are not only very important to the conference standings, but they serve as an excellent chance for the Bruins to race the elevated level of competition that they can expect to see at the NCAA championships on March 20. UCLA has four swimmers already automatically qualified to swim that day (Malin Svahnstrom, Kristen Lewis, Kim Vandenburg and Sara Platzer), and 11 others and two relay teams have provisionally qualified for the national tournament.

“We really do a good job of getting swimmers to NCAAs,” said Gallagher.

“It is nice that the swimmers who have made it are already in. Now they have a little bit of pressure off, which is a really good thing.”