UCLA and Arizona swim and dive meets as of late have read like a ‘tale of two relays.’
Last season, the Bruins narrowly defeated the Wildcats 157-141 after winning both relay contests. This year, however, the Wildcats came out on top with a close 151-149 victory over the Bruins on Friday, with wins in the 200-yard medley relay and 200-yard freestyle relay making the difference.
Friday’s meet showcased a strong performance by the dive team as freshman Annika Lenz claimed first place in both the 1-meter and 3-meter diving competitions. However, the swim team’s senior Ting Quah, who posted a season best in the 200-meter freestyle on Nov. 1, failed to capture either freestyle contest, and the relay squad came up short.
The Bruins were back in the pool the next morning in Tempe, Ariz., to take on Arizona State, this time capturing wins in both relays, including the 400-yard freestyle. UCLA went on to win the meet 183-113.
“We take one race at a time and don’t really focus on the last one,” said senior Anna Senko. “We take a minute to evaluate how it went and figure out some things we can learn from it and then move right on to the next race.”
But the Bruins struggled with consistency over the weekend as fatigue caused some performances to falter, according to Lenz. Lenz struggled on Saturday, placing sixth in the 3-meter before bouncing back in the 1-meter contest to come third against Arizona State.
“I made some improvements from the last meet, which was good. I hit some of my harder dives (on Friday) and got some more points with that,” Lenz said. “(Saturday) was not as good. I was really tired from the weekend so (during) my 3-meter I missed a lot of my dives.”
Saturday proved better for the swim team however, as many team members managed to notch season best times.
“I was really happy with (my performance). It was my all-season best (on Saturday), so it was faster than yesterday. … Usually it’s the other way around,” said sophomore Katie Kinnear, who won the 100-yard butterfly against Arizona State. “I was really happy with how it was and the whole team overall swam faster than they did (Friday), so it was really exciting.”
This is the last time the swimmers and divers will compete together for the remainder of the month. Both teams now head into almost two full weeks of uninterrupted training before heading to respective invitationals.
Swim will compete at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas Invitational over the weekend of Nov. 21 while dive travels back to Arizona for the Arizona Diving Invitational that same weekend.