“We just got back from Charlotte’s room tonight after watching Miracle. Just a little team bonding.” So wrote Susie Mathews, a member of the second-ranked UCLA women’s golf team, on Day 3 of the NCAA Women’s Golf Championships at Auburn’s Grand National Resort in Opelika, Ala. Mathews recorded her thoughts in an online diary during the team’s weeklong trip to Alabama in May.

As it turned out, the women didn’t need extra bonding. On May 22, they defeated second-place Oklahoma State by three strokes and top-ranked Duke by 11 strokes to win the 2004 national championship in a rain-delayed final round. The NCAA title was UCLA’s second of the 2003–’04 academic year (women’s gymnastics was the first) and the Bruins’ 92nd title overall.

“This is one of the greatest feelings I’ve ever had,” said Head Coach Carrie Forsyth ’94 after the Bruins had clinched only their second title in school history. “Our team played absolutely great today. We knew that we needed to come out and play solidly to leave here with the trophy.”

The Bruins played the final round in two-over par 290 and finished with a 72-hole score of 1,148, four-under par. Individually, UCLA received clutch performances from All-Americans Charlotte Mayorkas and Mathews. Mayorkas played the back nine in three-under par 33 for a final round score of 70, while Mathews played the inward nine in two-under par 34 for an even par round of 72. The Bruins also received strong performances from seniors Gina Umeck and Krystal Shearer and freshman Hannah Jun.

“It’s pretty awesome to win this thing,” Mathews wrote on Day 6. “It was quite hot most of the day, but we settled down and pulled through in the end. I’m carrying the trophy right now. We’ve all taken turns with it.

“On the last hole, I looked at the leaderboard and saw that we were three shots ahead. When I made my putt, there was all sorts of cheering. It was just fantastic!”

Take note, UCLA men. While no one argues the merits of the men’s teams’ glorious records in basketball, volleyball and tennis, there is another dynasty in the world of Bruin sports: UCLA softball.

The women won their second NCAA title in a row in Oklahoma City, making it 10 NCAA championships for the Bruins and 11 national championships in all (including a 1978 AIAW title). They defeated a tough California team, 3-1, in a prime-time game televised on ESPN on May 31.

For the first five innings, though, things were tense. UCLA trailed, 1-0, until senior Claire Sua hit her 10th home run of the season and freshman pinch hitter Kristen Dedmon batted in two more runs, giving senior pitcher Keira Goerl the cushion she needed as she recorded the last six defensive outs of the game. Goerl became only the third pitcher to earn a victory in multiple national championship games, joining UCLA’s Debbie Doom ’86 and Arizona’s Susie Parra.

“It’s a great feeling, just knowing that we got the ring,” Goerl says. “I don’t look at [throwing back-to-back championships] as an individual accomplishment, but as a total team effort. The team was right behind me, giving me the defensive and offensive support that we needed to win both titles.”

Head Coach Sue Enquist ’80, a member of UCLA’s first national championship team in 1978, was pleased that it was an all-Pac-10 final and lauded the talent of the entire conference. After the game, she lavished praise upon her own team, saying, “It’s hard to package the emotion, knowing this season had so many wonderful journeys. … We had to believe, had to be resilient, had to be able to separate our offense and defense. … I’m so extremely proud of this team because they never stopped believing.”

The NCAA title won by the softball team was UCLA’s third championship of the 2003–’04 academic year and the Bruins’ 93rd title overall. But the Bruins weren’t done yet.

As anyone who watched the 2004 Summer Olympic Games knows, there are an awful lot of events involved in outdoor track and field. There are the racing events, such as the 100m, 200m, 400m, 800m, 1,500m, 5,000m, 10,000m, 400m hurdles, steeplechase and relays. There are the throwing events — hammer, javelin, discus, shot put — and the jumping events, which include the long jump, high jump and triple jump. And, of course, there’s the pole vault.

So when the UCLA women’s track and field team arrived at Texas’ Mike A. Myers Stadium for the 2004 NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships, they knew what they had to do. And on June 12, the final day of competition, they did just that: They edged out defending champion Louisiana State University, 69-68, to win the national championship.

It was the UCLA women’s first outdoor championship since 1983, when Head Coach Jeanette Bolden ’85 was an All-American sprinter for the Bruins. UCLA had won indoor championships in 2000 and 2001, but this outdoor title was the first for Bolden as a head coach.

“It was very, very exciting, and at the same time there was a feeling of relief because we had finally done it,” Bolden says. “We finally got the monkey off our backs. We’d come in second so many times, this was like a breath of fresh air.”

The Bruins got exceptional performances from the entire team, particularly junior Jessica Cosby and senior Cari Soong in the hammer throw; junior Monique Henderson in the 400m; senior Sheena Johnson in the 400m hurdles; and Johnson, Henderson, senior Sani Roseby and senior Adia McKinnon in the 4x400m relay. The relay team’s fourth-place finish was enough to give the Bruins a final, one-point victory in the team standings over LSU (68), Nebraska (58), Texas (42) and Florida (29).

“This year, we had a lot more balance than we’ve had before. We had key people in almost every event, whereas before, we would have key people in a couple of events and then do a lot of hoping and praying,” Bolden says, laughing. “I think we really showed a togetherness that I hadn’t seen before. All the girls felt responsible for their own events. They were tired of being the ‘also-rans.’”

No longer the “also-rans,” the Bruin women raced to victory, bringing UCLA’s 2003–’04 total to four national championships and the Bruins’ overall total to 94, the most of any university in the country.