The UCLA swimmers traveled to Pullman, Wash. on Friday with new experiences behind them and lofty expectations ahead of them.
This was the first time the Bruins traveled to Washington State and competed in multiple dual meets over two days.
“It is a little bit of an adventure for everyone,” said backstroke and butterfly swimmer Katie Kinnear. The sophomore saw this as beneficial because it allowed the team to get used to staying in hotels while still being able to maintain performance level.
UCLA won both meets with scores of 133-67 and 142-80, respectively. Winning, however, was not the only goal for the Bruins. Their goal was also to break records at this meet.
“There were a bunch of dual meet records and pool records at Washington State and those were our goals – to break as many dual meet records as we could and as many pool records as we could,” said coach Cyndi Gallagher.
A lot of records did fall in Pullman. The relay records that were broken included the 200-meter freestyle, 400m freestyle, and the 400m medley. Individual records that were broken include 100m freestyle by freshman backstroke/freestyle swimmer Madison White and the 1000m freestyle broken by senior distance freestyle swimmer Lauren Baker.
Ahead of their trip to Washington State, the women had not focused on the records they ended up breaking. The Bruins instead spoke about preparing for the championship meets that were rapidly approaching. Many of the women saw this meet as an opportunity to prepare for bigger meets and the Pac-12 championships.
White noted that the dual meets are extremely beneficial in refining technique before bigger competition like the Pac-12 championships.
“The dual meets that we are having (help) because the things that we can fix, youcan work on before Pac-12s. It is nice knowing that I still have time to make it as perfect as I can,” White said.
The Bruins only have three dual meets left before the Pac-12 championships. They will face Stanford, Cal and USC.
Kinnear spoke about her excitement heading into these meets.
“I am excited to see what times people put up at these meets. Every event there will be close races. Having them at our home pool too is always fun,” Kinnear said.
The Bruins face the Stanford Cardinal on Jan. 31 at the Spieker Aquatics Center.