USD Magazine, Summer 2003

PierrickYsern

Toreros Send First Swimmer to NCAAs Ashley Swarr has boldly swum where no Torero has swum before. In March, the freshman from Honolulu, Hawaii, became che first USO ad-Jere co participate in the NCAA swimming and diving cham– pionships, earning honorable men– tion All-America honors at the national championship meet, held at Alabama's Auburn University. Swarr posted a 4: 18.27 mark in the 400-yard individual medley at the Pacific Collegiate Swimming Conference championships co qualify for the NCAA event. At Auburn, Swarr bested that mark, finishing in 4: 15 .01 , good for 11th– best in the nation . Swarr, the PCSC's Co-Swimmer of the Year, already has qualified for the Olympic trials in the summer of 2004. But she's raking rhe success in stride.

Men's Tennis Falls in NCAA Tournament Blame it on the Frisbee. USD's men's tennis team was on a coll in May, ranked 42 nd in the nation and

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fresh off an

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impressive second- ", place finish at the West Coast

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Conference Championships. The team earned an at-large berch co the NCAA Tournament, where the Toreros squared off against crosstown rival San Diego State University. T hen Pierrick Ysern, the team's No. 1 player, cwisced his knee playing Frisbee on campus. Without the freshman sensation, coach Tom Hagedorn was forced co shuffle his lineup, and USO lost the march with SDSU, 5-0, despite having defeated the Aztecs earlier in che season. "(Ysern's injury) cook a lor of wind out of our sails," says Hagedorn. "Thar's not an excuse, because SDSU has a great ream and played very well, but we certainly weren't at full strength." Hagedorn says his team has every reason co count on a remrn trip to the NCAA Tournament next season. Every member of the 2003 team returns, bolstered by a stellar recruiting class char includes Jeff Das, the nation's 17th-ranked high school player. "We didn't lose co a team outside the nation's Top 40 chis year," Hagedorn says, "and wich more expe– rience and some great new talent coming in, we're very optimistic." USD's women's team, despite a 6-9 conference record, made a run for a tournament berth in the wee championships, and finished second co Pepperdine University.

"Somewhere Kelsey just made up her mind she is going

to excel at whatever she does," says Coach Leeanne

Crain. 'Tve worked with many dedicated athletes over

the years, but I've never seen anyone like her. "

to Ali Cox '01, a USD rower who won a gold medal at the 2002 World Rowing Championships and is competing for a spot on the Olympic team. But Watters fails to see the parallels. "Comparing me with Ali is just crazy," she says. ''Ali is a world– class athlete, and I'm a student athlete who's just crying to get a little bit better with every practice." Watters' view of her post-USD life, in fact, has little to do with shells and sculls. She would like to combine the camp counselor in her with her passion for science. "I'd love to run sort of a Gesundheit Institute like Robin Williams in 'Patch Adams,"' she says, "a medical facility chat treats the mind and spirit as well as the body. I chink there is so much more to the holistic approach to medicine than has been tapped into so far, and it would be great to work in char field ." It makes sense, then, that this dynamo, who does more in a day than others do in a month, finds relaxation in the most unlikely place. Within the rigorous confines of the "engine room," Watters lets her busy world melt away and finds a Zen-like state of repose. "It requires such a focus of mind, body and soul chat I just go kind of blank," she says. "The ocher day I rook a quick glance out of the boat and saw the sun rising over USD, and it was one of the most beautiful things I'd ever seen."

Ashley Swart is the first USO swimmer to qualify for the NCAAs. "It was exhilarating to be in the same pool with Olympians (at the NCAAs)," she says. "I was already training pretty hard, so the physical part was not a big deal, bm now I have a better understanding of rhe mental pan of the sport." Before her trip to Auburn, Swarr was feted with a smprise patty from her teammates in her Maher Hall dorm. "They made up NCAA T-shirts with big markers," she says. "It was a very cool way to start the trip."

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