UCLA swim and dive will seek to replicate last year’s record of three straight victories after winter break and anticipates more challenging teams such as Cal, USC and Stanford later in the season.
The team, however, is not getting ahead of itself.
The dive team hosts nine teams in the Bruin Diving Invitational beginning on Friday and the swimmers return to action on Saturday at the Spieker Aquatics Center to face Utah.
In preparation for this season, the team had only nine days off from practice, and its training often featured double sessions.
Not only did they train together, but according to junior freestyle swimmer Monica Dornick, the players grew much closer as a result of being together over winter break. Because of the closures of the on-campus housing, the underclassmen on the team stayed with the upperclassmen over break. They trained together, ate together and lived together. Dornick said this allowed her to become much closer with some of the younger players on the team.
The training, while very intense, wasn’t without a few laughs. Sophomore distance freestyle swimmer Katy Campbell shared a story about a trust fall exercise the team did. One swimmer prepared to fall but forgot to preface with, “I trust you; I am about to fall.” There was a brief moment of panic as to whether or not someone would be there to catch her, but Campbell managed to catch her teammate and the girls laughed about it after.
Sophomore diver Montana Monahan said that the training intensity over break will help the team progress to reach their goals for the season. She said that while everyone is tired from how intense the training was, the team is trekking toward its goals.
“We’re working on the performance of our dives, and we are coming along pretty well as a collective team. I think we’ll have a really good showing. I know my dives are coming along pretty well,” Monahan said.
Dornick looks at this weekend as an opportunity to assess where the team is at.
“In the back of our minds we all expect to win, and while we just got off of winter training and are all a bit tired, we feel that this will be a good benchmark for us,” Dornick said.
Campbell echoed this sentiment, noting that although bigger teams are in the back of her mind, she isn’t letting that distract her from this weekend’s competition.
“We’re focusing on one meet at a time. (While) we’re thinking ahead, we are more focused on what is happening now,” Campbell said.