The UCLA swimmers and divers, although one team, will separate for a weekend, competing with more than a thousand miles between them. For both groups, these meets serve as the final measuring stick for the improvements they’ve made over the course of 2015.
The swimmers travel to the University of Texas where they’ll be competing against five other schools in the Texas Hall of Fame Invitational. UCLA will swim against three opponents they’ve already seen this season: USC, UCSB and Arizona.
Also going east, the divers head to the University of Minnesota, where they’ll dive against 12 other schools in the Jean Freeman Invitational on Friday and Saturday. The four divers attending the meet from UCLA are sophomore Maria Polyakova, junior Annika Lenz, sophomore Ciara Monahan and freshman Éloïse Bélanger.
“We’ve never gone to this (meet) … it’s a lot of local, smaller colleges plus the University of Minnesota, who has the returning NCAA diver of the year,” said diving coach Tom Stebbins. “Part of the reason why we’re going out there is to get a look at the progress that (Minnesota junior Yu Zhou) has made and how we stack up to that.”
Zhou, who is a three-time All-American, will be the Bruins’ biggest competition on the 3-meter dive. Polyakova is excited about the opportunity to dive against Zhao again, as she lost to her on the 3-meter dive at last year’s NCAA championship.
“It’s going to be a good experience for me,” Polyakova said. “I was fourth and she was first at NCAA championships.”
The diving team said its three-week break between the Trojan Diving Invitational and the Jean Freeman Invite had a positive impact, allowing the girls to catch up on some rest and prepare for the stiff competition they’ll face at their final meets of fall quarter.
This downtime was especially beneficial to Bélanger, who is diving in her first college meet this weekend. After a few months of adjusting to the United States and her first year of college, Bélanger – a highly touted recruit from Canada – will be participating in the 3-meter dive on Friday.
Stebbins is looking forward to Bélanger joining the team for the Minnesota meet, as she almost competed in the Trojan Diving Invitational.
“I’m excited to see (Éloïse but) I’m excited to see them all,” Stebbins said. “This is our first kind of window where we’ve taken a little bit of a rest. They should feel pretty good when we get out there.”
Compiled by Brent Troop, Bruin sports contributor.