SPORTSCOPE : UCLA to Play Host to Pac-10 Women’s Gymnastics Championships

The Pacific 10 Conference women’s gymnastics championships, featuring five of the nation’s top 20 teams, will be held at 7 p.m. Saturday at UCLA’s John Wooden Center.

The field includes No. 3 Oregon State, No. 8 Arizona, No. 9 UCLA, No. 14 Arizona State, No. 20 California, Stanford and Washington.

Top individuals include Chari Knight and Joy Selig of Oregon State, Diane Monty of Arizona, Michele Colavin of Arizona State, Cindy Tom of Cal and Natalie Britton of UCLA.

Knight won the all-around competition at the UCLA/Times Invitational and Selig is defending NCAA floor exercise and balance beam champion. Monty has had a leg injury, but Arizona sophomore Anna Basaidua set a school record of 38.90 in the all-around last weekend.

In a meet last week, Arizona State had four athletes who scored 38 or better in the all-around. As a team, the Wildcats set a school mark of 194.05.

Tom tied a school record with a 9.9 on the beam on Sunday and Cal teammate Kristen Smyth set a school record of 38.45 in the all-around on Friday. Shylo Milner has been Washington’s top all-around performer the past eight meets and teammate Lisa Churchill broke a school record with a 9.8 on the uneven bars last weekend.

UCLA won the Stanford meet last week, but will compete Saturday without All-American Carol Ulrich and Karen Nelson, who are both injured. At Stanford, Bruin senior Renee Kelly was first in the all-around with a 37.25, first in the vault and tied for first in floor exercise with Britton.

The UCLA men’s gymnastics team will compete in a dual meet Friday at California.

Last week the Bruins finished third with a score of 282.45 at the Wooden Center Invitational. Top-ranked Oklahoma won with a school-record 286.30. UCLA’s Scott Keswick took first on the still rings with a career-best 9.95, which was also a Wooden Center record.

The top-ranked UCLA women’s softball team (26-0) is idle this week. Last week the Bruins swept double-headers from New Mexico and San Diego State.

In the first game against New Mexico, Heather Compton pitched a two-hit shutout and struck out 14. In the second game, the Lobos scored a run off Bruin Lisa Fernandez, snapping her streak of 97 consecutive scoreless innings.

Against San Diego State, DeDe Weiman pitched her third no-hit game of the year, tying a UCLA season record for a second time, and she also struck out 12. Compton had a one-hitter with nine strikeouts in the second game.

In the four games, Yvonne Gutierrez went eight for 11 (.727) with six runs batted in, three triples and a home run. She is batting a team-high .449.

The No. 6 UCLA men’s volleyball team (8-5 overall, 7-2 in Western Intercollegiate Volleyball Assn. play) will play host to No. 2 Cal State Long Beach (19-2, 8-1) at 7:30 p.m. Friday at Pauley Pavilion.

Last week the Bruins defeated Pepperdine and George Mason, each in three games, and lost to San Diego State in three.

Against Pepperdine, Dan Landry had 16 kills and five blocks and Carl Henkel had 14 kills and four blocks. Against San Diego State, Landry had 22 kills. Against George Mason, Bruin All-American Mike Whitcomb had 12 kills.

The No. 10 UCLA men’s swim team finished second to Stanford in the Pac-10 championships last week and qualified five swimmers and three relay teams for the NCAA championships, which will be held March 28-30 at the University of Texas.

Stanford won its 10th consecutive conference title with 877.5 points and UCLA scored 561.5 to edge Cal by five-tenths of a point for second.

Qualifying for the Bruins were Byron Davis, Andrea Cecchi, Andy O’Grady, Mark Thompson and Stephane Dupont and the 400-meter and 200 medley relay teams and the 200 freestyle relay team.

The UCLA women’s track team will play host to Fresno State and Cal State Northridge and the Bruin men to Texas and Fresno State on Saturday at Drake Stadium.

The first women’s field event, the long jump, will start at 11:30 a.m., and the javelin throw will be the first men’s field event at 1:15 p.m. The first women’s running event, the 3,000-meter run, will be at 1:30 p.m., and the first men’s race, the 400 relay, will be at 2 p.m. The hammer throw will begin at 10 a.m. at West Los Angeles College.

At last week’s NCAA indoor championships at Indianapolis, UCLA’s Tracie Millet and Eric Bergreen won the women’s and men’s shot put, respectively, a first for the meet. Millet won her second consecutive championship with a personal-best 54-3 1/4 on her last throw and Bergreen had a personal-best 62-10 3/4.