Team plans to use meet to gear up for its heavier competitions

  Photo by ED RHEE

Freshman Tamara Bal swims in the 300 backstroke
relay at the Blue & Gold Innersquad meet last October.

By Regina Yeh
Daily Bruin Contributor

As the women’s swim team practices, a list of future meets
stands written at the blackboard at the front of the pool:
Stanford, Cal, USC, Pac-10, NCAA.

And while the team looks forward to its first home meet today at
the Sunset Recreation Center at 2 p.m. against the University of
Illinois, the focus is ultimately put upon the bigger meets coming
up.

“The important thing about the upcoming meet is that
it’s just another opportunity to compete in events before the
larger competitions,” assistant coach Greg Meehan said,
referring to the list written in chalk. “Everybody’s
been working hard throughout break, and we’re looking forward
to put all the little things together.”

The team spent two weeks during winter break on what they called
“Christmas training,” two weeks of dual
two-and-a-half-hour practices each day working on building up
endurance and speed.

Last week’s successful meet against UCSD demonstrates the
confident attitude that everybody shares after such rigorous
training.

“Our win at San Diego was a good indication of the
effectiveness of our Christmas training, and how we’ve been
doing is a good sign that the Pac-10 situation will also do
well,” senior Emily Melina said.

Currently holding an overall record of 6-2, with 1-2 in the
Pac-10 category, the UCLA women’s team prepares to go through
the season with nothing short of absolute concentration.

The fact that Wednesday’s meet will be on UCLA territory
also could give the Bruins an advantage.

“All of the meets we’ve gone to, we’ve done
really well,” freshman Jeanette Nieto said. “It’s
a good show of how we’re going to do; the work we’ve
done over break was especially intense, without the distraction of
school or work ““ it was just about swimming. And we just know
that we’re going to win.”