UCI NOTEBOOK : It’s Tough to Take This Swimmer Out of the Water

Laurel Hooper swam up to eight miles a day at the peak of her training this season. As the UC Irvine freshman tapers in preparation for the Big West Conference championships this week in Long Beach, she is looking forward to the postseason.

Hooper, 18, is going to get out of the pool and. . . . jump back in, to play club water polo.

“It’s kind of a little break,” she said with enthusiasm. “It keeps me from going crazy, swimming all the time.”

Hooper played high school water polo in San Antonio, where she lived with her mother before returning to her former home in California last summer to live with her father in Laguna Beach and go to college.

“My freshman and sophomore years in high school, we won the State championship,” Hooper said. “But there were only about eight water polo teams in Texas.”

Water polo is a nice diversion, but swimming has always been her thing.

Hooper, an individual medley and distance freestyle specialist, has the fifth-best time in the Big West this season in the mile freestyle (10 minutes 27.08 seconds). She also set an Irvine school record in the 200 backstroke early this season, only to see teammate Liz Koch break it. When Hooper looks at the board listing all of Irvine’s records, she sees other events she hopes to pin her name by during the next three years.

She has been a swimmer since way back, chasing her twin brother Matt since they were born 18 years ago--Matt first, and Laurel two or three minutes later.

Matt, a world-ranked distance freestyle specialist, is training in Texas and hopes to make the U.S. Olympic team.

“My brother was like, instant Olympian, instant greatness,” Hooper said, remembering when they began swimming. “I was like a slow little turtle.”

Laurel is a sturdy swimmer, built for distance.

“I’m not a very good sprinter,” she said. “The shorter the distance, the slower I get.”

The distance to the Big West meet will be short, but the site, Belmont Plaza pool in Long Beach, is the same one in which Hooper had one of her best meets. “I was a freshman in high school. It was my first junior nationals, and I got eighth in the 1,650,” she said. “I dropped a minute off my time. That was a miracle swim. That makes that pool good luck for me.”

Competition in the Big West swimming and diving championships begins at 10:30 a.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday, with final events at 6 each evening.

UC Santa Barbara is the defending men’s champion; Nevada Las Vegas won the 1991 women’s title.

Among Irvine’s other top competitors:

--Greg Dovidio, a junior diver, was undefeated in dual meets this season and already has qualified for the NCAA regional meet.

--Pat Keenan, a sophomore, was third in the 200 and 500 freestyles last year.

--Jeff Klatt, a senior, was second in the 200 butterfly and third in the 100 butterfly.

--Liz Koch, a sophomore, set the school record in the 200 backstroke this season.

--Danielle Pajer, a junior, specializes in breaststroke events.

--Jason Sakamoto, a sophomore, had two top-six finishes in breaststroke events.

--Devon Sandlin, a junior individual medley specialist, returned to the team this season after taking off last year to have a baby.

--Stacey Stout, a freshman, is another IM specialist.

--Erik Walton, a sophomore, was fourth in the 100-yard backstroke last year.

After breaking an 11-game losing streak with two conference victories last week, the men’s basketball team has a leg up on the competition for the final berth in the Big West tournament.

San Jose State, the 10th place team, has only one conference victory--over Irvine.

There are six games left, so Irvine conceivably could climb higher than its current ninth-place standing and gain what would ostensibly be a better seeding. But Coach Rod Baker says making the field is what’s important.

“Seeding won’t matter,” he said. “It’s not a deal where the first-round game is at home for the higher-seeded team. I don’t think there’s a whole lot of difference between (Team) 2 and (Team) 9.”

The No. 1 team, UNLV, isn’t playing in the tournament because of NCAA probation that prohibits the Rebels from advancing to the NCAA tournament. The No. 10 team will not make the Big West field.

Stat of the Week: Irvine’s victories last week--in contrast to beating San Diego State, Bradley and Lafayette--were over good teams. Fresno State was seven games above .500 before losing to Irvine, and Utah State was four games above .500.

They Can Dream: Two victories after more than a month without one can make a team giddy. Baker and assistant coach Tim Murphy were bantering Monday when Murphy interjected, “Who guards Laettner?” The scenario, as concocted by Baker and Murphy, is that Irvine wins the Big West tournament and draws Duke and center Christian Laettner in the first round of the 64-team NCAA tournament. “I’m figuring, with our record (5-16), we’re probably a 63- or 64-seed,” Baker said.

The Titan and Anteater men’s basketball teams play at 7:30 Saturday night in Titan Gym, and the women meet at 7:30 Thursday night in the Bren Center.

At 4-17, and 0-12 in the Big West, Irvine’s women are looking for somebody to beat. Since Fullerton defeated Irvine, 66-59, at Titan Gym in the first meeting, the Titans are about as good a prospect as the Anteaters have.

Saturday, Irvine got a boost when senior guard Felicia Dixon finally played her first game of the season after regaining academic eligibility. Dixon had five points, three rebounds and five assists in 26 minutes.

Anteater Notes

David Bladow, a right-handed pitcher who was 5-7 with a 5.62 earned-run average last season, has opened the season 2-0 with a 1.06 ERA. . . . The women’s volleyball team has announced three signings: Popi Edwards of Long Beach Poly High, Kristina Osterloh of L.A. Marymount High and Kathleen Oleksow of Del Mar Torrey Pines High. . . . The men’s volleyball team, which has never beaten UCLA in seven attempts, plays the Bruins in Westwood at 7:30 p.m. Friday.