Bruins perform well in spite of poor health and injuries

  COURTNEY STEWART/Daily Bruin Junior Heidi
Prosser dives in springboard competition.

By Oshin Aivazian
Daily Bruin Contributor

Instead of smelling the roses, the diving team smelled the
chlorine in weekend action at the Bruin Invitational in
Pasadena.

UCLA went against its top competitors in California, among them
Stanford and the USC. These teams will meet again in the span of
one month, making the Bruin Invitational an excellent preview of
skill and the need for improvement.

The performance by the Bruins was stellar for a team that has
been hobbled by injury, with seven divers sidelined for
Saturday’s meet.

“We have problems with the health of the team right now,
we’re looking for the upcoming break for gradual
recovery,” diving coach Tom Stebbins said.

The hampered Bruins ended up with a pair of top 10 finishes in
the one-meter springboard ““ including a fourth place finish
by junior diver Heidi Prosser.

In the three-meter event, Prosser was the only Bruin to finish
in the top 10, placing ninth.

Janine Strack, a freshman diver, was the only UCLA entry in the
10-meter event, competing despite injury.

“We’ve had a really tough Christmas training, and we
have to compete at full level, despite being tired and
injured,” Strack said.

The Bruin Invitational marked the beginning of the final half of
not only the season, but also the career of senior diver Liz
Ackerman, who placed 12th in the one-meter and 13th in the
three-meter event.

“Competitions like the Bruin Invitational, and the end of
the season approaching, tell me that four exciting years of diving
at UCLA are almost over,” Ackerman said.

The Bruin Invitational one-meter event was won by Rashelle
Kunkle of the Trojan Diving Club, and the three-meter title
belonged to Blythe Hartley of USC.