There are final meets, and then there are final meets against USC.
The No. 21 Bruins took on the No. 5 Trojans this weekend, looking for an upset in their final meet before the Pac-12 championships.
While some individual performers trumped USC, UCLA swimming and diving fell short in the overall team competition by a score of 172-128.
Top individual swimming performers for the Bruins included freshman Kenisha Liu, who won the 200-yard freestyle with a time of 1:45.38, and senior Linnea Mack, who won the 100-yard backstroke with a time of 51.61. Junior Katie Grover also added a win in the 100-yard butterfly with a time of 52.56.
UCLA finished on top in both diving events. Sophomore Eloise Belanger won the 1-meter for the Bruins with a score of 296.10, and well as the 3-meter with a score of 319.80. Junior Maria Polyakova added a third-place finish in the 1-meter and a second-place finish in the 3-meter for the Bruins.
Top performers for the Trojans included Riley Scott, who finished first in both the 100-and 200-yard breaststroke events, as well as Rebecca Mann, who led the field with a time of 4:44.60 in the 500-yard freestyle.
Mann also set the pool record in the 1650-yard freestyle with a time of 15:52.30, almost 20 seconds faster than the previous record.
The Bruins will look to improve on their scores from this meet as they begin to prepare for Pac-12s. Belanger will look to improve her 1-meter score closer to the 336.00 that set a new UCLA record and earned her runner-up status at the NCAA championship final in 2016.
She will also look to move her 3-meter score closer to the 340.75 she posted at the 2016 NCAA consolation final.
Polyakova will also look to improve her score in the 3-meter and approach or pass her personal best of 392.00, which she earned at the 2015 NCAA championship final.
On the swimming side of things for UCLA, Mack will look to whittle down her 100-yard backstroke time closer to her personal best and UCLA record of 51.24. Grover will look to pass up her personal best of 52.44 in the 100-yard fly.
The Bruins will face stiff competition at the upcoming meet. Three of the top five teams in the country – No. 1 Stanford, No. 2 California and No. 5 USC – hail from the Pac-12.