W. swIm flounders at Trojan Invite

Published: Monday, March 6, 1995

Bruins find little

improvement at last-chance meet

By Ross Bersot

The cloudy, gray skies and drizzling rain that blanketed McDonald's Stadium during the Trojan Invitational must have stolen some of the UCLA women's swim team's thunder. Coming off an impressive second-place showing at the Pacific-10 Conference Championships, the Bruins were unable to improve any of their times during Saturday's meet.

The Trojan Invitational gave swimmers from USC, UC Santa Barbara and UCLA a final chance to qualify for the NCAA Championships and an opportunity to better their marginal times. Without the energy that a big meet like Pac-10s generates, the swimmers were forced to motivate themselves, a difficult task with the NCAA Championships just around the corner.

"We wanted to swim a little faster," UCLA head coach Cyndi Gallagher said. "It's hard to do that after Pac-10s. That's why I don't like these meets."

A noticeable lack of interest was displayed by most team members throughout the meet. Aside from breaststroker Glenda Lueders leading a cheer that involved beating kickboards against the starting blocks and chanting U-C-L-A, no one seemed to acknowledge the competition at all.

UCLA assistant coach Brad Burnham expected the laid-back atmosphere to promote better performances as the big-meet pressure was absent.

"I was expecting that if they were relaxed that someone might pop off a really good swim, without all of the tension at Pac-10s," Burnham said. "But I guess it was too relaxed. They weren't ready to go as fast as they can go."