SportsScope : UCLA Women Gymnasts Win Pac-10 and Swing On to the Regional Meet

The nationally top-ranked UCLA women’s gymnastics team (12-0) won its second straight Pacific 10 Conference championship last week with a score of 189.45 at Tempe, Ariz. The Bruins advanced to the NCAA West Regional on April 9 at Oregon State.

Bruin sophomore All-American Jill Andrews was named the conference gymnast of the year after the conference meet. Andrews won the all-around with a 38.6 and the vault (9.85) and finished second in floor exercise (9.55) and beam (9.65). UCLA’s Kim Hamilton, defending NCAA champion in floor exercise, won that event with a 9.65 and bars (9.7).

Coming off a second-place finish in last week’s Blue-Gray tennis tournament in Montgomery, Ala., the No. 5 Pepperdine men’s tennis team will play host to No. 6 UC Irvine at 1:30 p.m. Saturday.

The Waves (15-4) won four of six singles matches against No. 1 USC in the tournament but lost all three doubles matches as the Trojans edged Pepperdine, 5-4. Pepperdine advanced to the final by beating Alabama, Southwest Louisiana and No. 3 Georgia (tied for that national ranking with Stanford), all by 5-1 scores.

Richard Gallien, Pepperdine Co-Coach with Allen Fox, said the loss to the Trojans “was a tough one to swallow” but the Waves “defeated Georgia rather handily--and they have won the NCAAs two of the last three years.”

Irvine, which lost in January to Pepperdine, 7-2, in Malibu, won its own tournament, the Marriott Invitational, last week, topping Minnesota in the final.

After last week’s conquests at Arizona State, 5-4, and Arizona, 5-1, the No. 8 UCLA men’s tennis team, 14-4 overall, took possession of first place in the Pac-10 with a 4-0 record.

Coach Glenn Bassett’s Bruins have never lost to either of the Arizona schools. The Bruins are 27-0 against Arizona State and 23-0 against the Wildcats.

Bassett said that the Bruins may be champions of Arizona and on top of the conference standings but face tough competition in California this week and next. UCLA will play Friday at No. 3 Stanford (12-1, 2-0) and Saturday at California and entertain top-ranked USC at 1 p.m. April 9 at the Los Angeles Tennis Center on campus.

Stanford is led by Patrick McEnroe, ranked fifth nationally in singles, and No. 6 Jeff Tarango. But the Cardinal will also get a boost with the return of David Wheaton, the nation’s best junior player last year, who missed the first part of the season after he cut his left wrist on a broken window.

In last week’s narrow win over Arizona State, the Bruins lost the first three singles matches but got wins in the next three from Patrick Galbraith, Robert Bierens and Giora Payes. UCLA closed with victories in doubles from Galbraith-Brian Garrow and Bierens-Buff Farrow.

The No. 4 UCLA women’s tennis team (13-3 overall, 3-2 in the Pac-10) will play host to Harvard at 1 p.m. today and to U.S. International at 1 p.m. Friday at Los Angeles Tennis Center.

Last week the Bruins defeated No. 5 Cal, 5-4, but lost to No. 3 Stanford, 6-3.

Winner of 15 of its last 16 matches, the No. 19 Pepperdine women’s tennis team (18-3) will entertain Colorado at 1:30 p.m. today and Nevada Las Vegas at 1:30 p.m. Friday.

The Waves, who won their sixth straight dual match with a 5-3 victory over Pacific last week, are paced by sophomore Ginger Helgeson, ranked 11th nationally in singles, and freshman Janna Kovacevich, No. 18. Helgeson has a 16-1 record and Kovacevich is 19-0.

The Santa Monica Optimist Club has taken over sponsorship of a high school all-star basketball double-header for boys and girls teams from the Westside and South Bay areas. The game was sponsored for the last eight years by the Carson and Harbor City Lions clubs.

The games will be played April 8 at Santa Monica College. The girls game will start at 6 p.m. and the boys at 8 p.m. Proceeds benefit the Optimist Boys’ Home in Highland Park.

Among Westside senior boys expected to play are Keith Neal of Santa Monica High, Steve Jeter of Culver City, Eric Nelson of St. Bernard, Michael Brown of Westchester, Jamie Dudley of Palisades, Jason Joe of St. Monica and Chuck Hegeman of University.

Local senior girls invited include Kathy McGriff of Culver City and Trisha Stafford and Tammy Story, both of Westchester.

Tickets are $6 for adults, $4 for high school students with identification cards and $2 for children age 12 and younger. Tickets may be purchased at the Santa Monica Outlook, the Santa Monica Boys’ Club and the Santa Monica College student activities center.

The top-ranked UCLA women’s softball team (26-3 overall, 5-1 in Pac-10) will be in Arizona for double-headers Saturday against No. 11 Arizona State (23-14, 6-4) and Monday against No. 3 Arizona (33-9, 7-1).

Last week the Bruins won the San Jose State Invitational. Bruin pitcher Lisa Longaker won four games and had one save in the tournament, and teammate Samantha Ford won the other three.

Longaker, who has pitched 85 consecutive innings without giving up an earned run and 29 straight scoreless innings, was named the invitational’s most valuable player. Other Bruins who won tournament honors were freshman first baseman Kerry Dienelt, who was named the outstanding defensive player, and Ford and shortstop Lisa Hankerd, who were named to the all-tournament team.

The Pepperdine baseball team, 17-15-1 overall and 6-1-1 in the West Coast Athletic Conference after sweeping four games from the University of San Diego, will play a double-header at U.S. International at noon Saturday and entertain UC Santa Barbara at 2:30 p.m. Tuesday.

Against the Toreros last week, the Waves scored 30 runs, batted .348 and made only one error. Pepperdine sophomore pitcher Wayne Helm has a bone fragment in his right elbow and will be out of action indefinitely. In 14 games, Helm is 4-2 with two saves and a 2.92 earned-run average.

Weekly honors for track athletes in the Pac-10 were swept last week by UCLA athletes.

Junior weight thrower David Wilson and senior hurdler-jumper Kevin Young shared the conference honor after they led the Bruins to their 33rd straight dual-meet victory, a 96-67 defeat of California. Bruin senior Gail Devers was singled out for breaking a stadium record in the 100-meter hurdles at the Stanford Festival.

Against the Bears, Wilson won the hammer at 206-1 and the shot put in 56-10 3/4 and placed fourth in the discus with a personal best mark of 187-9. Young won the 400-meter intermediate hurdles in an NCAA-qualifying time of 49.92 and the long jump with a wind-aided 25-4 and finished third in the 110 high hurdles in 14.16.

Devers broke the Stanford Stadium record of 13.3 in the 100 hurdles, set by Benita Fitzgerald of Tennessee in 1983. Earlier she set a UCLA record in the same event with a 13.04 at Drake Stadium.

Other UCLA performers who did well were Caryl Smith, who won the 100 meters (12.15); Kris Larson, who won the discus at 165-11, and Tracie Millet, runner-up to Larson with a 164-6.

On Saturday, the UCLA men will compete in the Sun Angel Invitational at Phoenix and the Bruin women at the Cal State Northridge Relays.

The No. 6 Pepperdine men’s volleyball team, battling for a spot in the Western Selection Tournament, will play a Western Intercollegiate Volleyball Assn. match at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at Cal State Long Beach.

As the week began, the Waves were in fifth place in the WIVA with a 7-6 mark and 11-10 overall. The conference champion generally has earned an automatic NCAA berth, while the second- through fifth-place teams have gone to the Western Selection Tournament to determine the winner of another NCAA playoff berth.