The swim and dive team’s performance in the state of Arizona over the weekend told a tale of two cities.
UCLA split a pair of dual meets against Pac-10 foes, defeating Arizona State on Friday in Tempe, Ariz., and falling to Arizona the very next day in Tucson, Ariz.
Friday against Arizona State (3-3, 1-2 Pac-10), many Bruins (3-1, 2-1) broke personal records in a solid all-around performance for the team. In all, 34 personal-best marks were posted as UCLA won nine of the 16 events. With the near three-dozen career performances, the Bruins won 160-140.
“I was happy with how we swam and competed against Arizona State,” swim coach Cyndi Gallagher said. “They did a good job of getting their hand on the wall and winning a lot of races.”
Junior Brittany Beauchan continued her impressive season in breaststroke events against the Sun Devils. For the second straight meet, Beauchan won the 100-yard breaststroke, 200-yard breaststroke and helped the 200-yard medley relay team win by swimming the breaststroke leg.
Beauchan set a personal record in the 100-yard breaststroke and also swam below NCAA “B” qualifying standards in both of the individual events.
Two other swimmers also posted times that met NCAA “B” qualifying standards.
Sophomore Yasi Jahanshahi won the 200-yard butterfly in a time of 1:59.45, more than one second below the standard of 2:00.69. Junior Lauren Hall met the mark in the 400-yard individual medley, winning the event in a time of 4:18.32, also more than one second below the standard of 4:19.69.
Saturday against Arizona (3-0, 2-0) was a much different story for the Bruins.
The Wildcats dominated across the board, posting 13 event wins and showing off their form that led them to a national championship two years ago and put away the Bruins, 176-123.
Both teams entered the meet fresh off a win, with UCLA having defeated ASU and Arizona triumphing over USC the day before.
Freshman Laurence Delisle was the only Bruin swimmer to post three individual event wins over the two-day span, winning both the 100-yard and 200-yard backstroke against ASU and winning the 200 individual medley against Arizona. Her time in the 200 backstroke missed the “B” standard by just .63 seconds.
For Delisle, Arizona’s history may have been a mental factor.
“It’s definitely intimidating stepping on the pool deck knowing they were national champions two years ago,” Delisle said. “But we went in there confident.”
The diving team also struggled to find consistency over the weekend.
Junior Laura Winn posted big personal records on both the 1-meter springboard (251.63) and 3-meter springboard (273.53) against ASU, but did not come close to matching that success against Arizona.
Junior Karina Silva recovered from a rough first day at ASU to pick up two second-place finishes in Arizona, but the team was shut out from victory in four events over two days.
“Against ASU we were very disciplined,” Winn said. “(On Saturday), we kind of let that fall apart a little bit.”
Dive coach Tom Stebbins agreed, adding that the Bruins still need to build confidence through experience.
“Our youth kind of showed a little bit this weekend,” Stebbins said. “We still haven’t quite found our identity. We need to develop kind of a swagger.”
Overall, Gallagher saw this weekend as “a good learning lesson” for the program.
“I think we took a lot of steps forward against Arizona State and took a couple backwards against Arizona,” Gallagher said. “We can definitely be better, even against a team like Arizona, who is really dominant and has got a real chance to win NCAAs this year.”