Team wins its first conference title
By Daily Bruin Staff
March 5, 2001 9:00 p.m.
 COURTNEY STEWART Anne Baghramian
prepares for a dive during a meet earlier this year. Pac-10
conference UCLA 1,338 Arizona 1,289.5
By Calley Prezzano
Daily Bruin Contributor
The UCLA women’s swimming and diving team has officially
won the Pac-10 Conference for the first time in history after a
recount in points from the Championship meet.
“It’s a great way to end four years,” senior
Brighid Dwyer said.
“Winning Pac-10s was a sweet victory, especially since our
last three dual meets were very emotional and draining,” she
added, referring to losses to Cal, Stanford and USC.
Fellow senior Beth Goodwin agreed.
“It is great to finally get recognition for being a strong
team,” she said.
The problem at the meet, which took place Feb. 22 to 24,
occurred when a computer glitch resulted in the ninth through 24th
places in the three diving events not being scored. All of
UCLA’s divers placed within that frame
“It’s disappointing because we trust Pac-10 and they
overlooked us,” Goodwin said. “It is not the
swimmers’ or the coaches’ responsibility to make sure
things are scored right. It’s the Pac-10 system’s
responsibility.”
The new top scores are UCLA 1,338, Arizona 1,289.5. The original
scores had Arizona scoring 1,229.5 and UCLA 1,130.
At the meet, the Bruins swam the best they had all season with
swimmers scoring high in every event, although they did not win
one.
“Other teams may have Olympians that have won gold medals,
but we have no superstar. We rely on the team to make the
win,” Goodwin said.
The entire team was earning season or lifetime best times,
especially as the meet went on, with standout performances from
Goodwin, senior Tracy Kinsch, sophomore Stacy Kearney and freshmen
Kristen Lewis, Naoko Watanabe and Leslie Hovsepian.
“We pushed our bodies to our physical limit,”
Goodwin said. “No one held anything back.”
Before the scores were announced, UCLA Head Coach Cyndi
Gallagher thought the team should have been behind by only four
points. Instead, UCLA was announced to be behind Arizona by 99
points. Things just didn’t add up.
“I got an e-mail from one of the parents because they had
looked over the diving scores and re-added them up,”
Gallagher said.
“The win turned out in our favor, so I notified Pac-10s,
and Arizona just finished reviewing the final scores yesterday to
make it official.”
“We knew what we had was undeniable,” said UCLA
diving coach Tom Stebbins. “However, we had to wait for the
committee to make the changes.”
As soon as they heard the news, the team ran to the Bruin Bear
and started to cheer and take pictures.
“Our friendships on the team have grown, and winning
Pac-10s has brought us closer than we already were,” Dwyer
said. “Supporting one another has pushed us this far, and now
it will push us through the end.”
To move from last year’s fourth place finish to winning
Pac-10s this year was the team’s goal all season.
“We celebrated even when we got second,” Gallagher
said. “And now winning is winning, whether we know now, or
(knew) at the meet.”
Being at a school with elite athletics, winning the Pac-10 was a
matter of pride.
“It’s the little things they’ve wanted,”
assistant coach Susan Trainer said.
In the weight room, there is a plaque with a list of all of the
UCLA sports, including conference titles or national titles below.
Swimming has been one of the few sports that is blank.
“They want to walk in there and see their
accomplishments,” Trainer said. “It’s a
motivational factor. The team is excited and proud.”
The swimmers were also excited that the alliance with the dive
team pushed them over the top for the win.
“Rather than have two separate teams, we have integrated,
and rely on each other,” Dwyer said. “It is great to
see that the diving program can make an enormous difference on the
outcome of the meet.”
Now that they’ve won the Pac-10, the team is focusing on
NCAA Championships. They’ve had a great season so far, and
winning the Pac-10 isn’t the end.
“Georgia may have lots of people, but we have stronger
swimmers,” Goodwin said. “Now we are focused
individually, and we are concentrating on being No. 1 at
NCAAs.”
Gallagher agrees that the swimmers are ready for the next
challenge: scoring high at NCAAs.
“They’re hungrier and more focused,” she said.
“They know how good they can be and don’t ever want to
stop.”
