The Bruins will wrap up their road schedule this weekend in Washington.
UCLA swim and dive (6-0, 3-0 Pac-12) will travel north to face Washington State (3-3, 0-2) on Saturday morning for a swim-only dual meet. The Bruins have an 11-1 record all-time versus the Cougars, most recently coming away with a 152-104 victory Oct. 28, 2017.
The UCLA swimmers had a break from competition for more than a month, coming back to dual meets last weekend with a 182-79 victory over UC San Diego to start off the new year.
Coach Jordan Wolfrum said while the Bruins had a hiatus from actual competitions, she and the rest of the coaching staff kept the intensity of training up throughout winter break and specifically worked to improve the team’s conditioning.
“These two meets came up fast on the back of a big block of winter training, and so I’ve been really challenging our team to take the fatigue and the workload that we’re still in and to find a way to be ready to race,” Wolfrum said. “That’s a challenge, but I think this team is really excited to be back competing.”
With just a week between meets, senior Kenisha Liu said the team will also have to adjust to having a quick turnaround between competitions.
“It’s just harder because you’ve got to get back on it and, you know, get back to hard work,” Liu said. “You have a day to relax, and then it’s just like, ‘Let’s go win this next meet.’ But honestly I think the placement is pretty good, because we’re just coming off of the (San Diego) meet and going into another one, we’re just really ready to learn from our mistakes.”
This will also mark the Bruins’ first dual meet versus a Pac-12 opponent since the beginning of November, when UCLA defeated two currently ranked conference teams, No. 21 Arizona State and No. 22 Arizona.
Washington State will come into this weekend’s matchup on a winning streak of two dual meets after having beaten Wyoming and Colorado State in a combined dual meet. But in the Cougars’ only Pac-12 dual meets this season, they lost to both then-No. 8 Stanford and then-No. 12 California, scoring fewer than 90 points in both meets.
Sophomore Claire Grover said getting to face Washington State and other Pac-12 teams raises the stakes for the Bruins and gives them a chance at a sneak peak of the teams they’ll face in late February at the Pac-12 Championships.
“It’s more exciting, I think it’s more fun (to face a Pac-12 opponent),” Grover said. “It’s just cool to race people in your conference before you see them at the conference meet later.”
Saturday’s meet will also be the last on the road for UCLA, as they will compete only at Spieker Aquatics Center for the rest of the season’s dual meets. Wolfrum said going on the road to compete presents extra challenges for the Bruins, like having a limited traveling squad and learning to adapt to opponents’ indoor aquatics centers.
“It’s just answering those challenges and staying focused on the task at hand, but I think that we will be more than happy to be back home and back on our turf for our last three meets,” Wolfrum said.
