UCLA swim and dive remains triumphant in back to back Arizona meets

Through a doubleheader weekend, the Bruins’ energy rallied them to victory over the Arizona schools.

“I felt very motivated and energetic going into today coming off of both of my individual events yesterday,” said sophomore swimmer Ana Jih-Schiff. “Enthusiasm coming in today was great and energy was super high.”

No. 20 UCLA swim and dive (4-0, 3-0 Pac-12) swept back-to-back dual meets, beating both Arizona (2-3, 0-2) and Arizona State (0-6, 0-2) on Friday and Saturday, respectively. The Bruins scored 177 points to the Wildcats’ 123 and 183 to the Sun Devils’ 116 on sunny afternoons at Spieker Aquatics Center.

UCLA took 10 of 16 events Friday and 11 of 16 events Saturday. Jih-Schiff won all but one event she participated in over the weekend, emerging victorious in her individual breaststroke events as well as the 200-yard medley relay.

In the 200-yard breaststroke, Jih-Schiff pulled ahead of the Sun Devils swimmer in the last 25 yards to earn the win by less than a second.

“My body, it felt like it was giving out, but my teammates, I saw them across the pool at the other end on my turn,” Jih-Schiff said. “And everyone just cheering for me helped me push through the last 25 to pass the other girl.”

Coach Jordan Wolfrum said the quick turnaround between the meets marked an important weekend for this season.

“The two dual meets in a row are a unique challenge because your energy comes up so high for such a concentrated period of time,” Wolfrum said. “And then you’ve got to repeat that whole thing again … we knew that would be a challenge from the beginning of the season.”

Alongside success in the pool, the Bruins managed to place first in diving, sweeping both the 1-meter dive and the 3-meter dive on Saturday after getting second place in both on Friday. Despite not clinching a win over her Arizona opponent in the first meet, sophomore diver Zoe Jespersgaard set a personal best score of 330.90 in the 3-meter diving event.

Jespersgaard credited her focus and mindset for the success over the weekend.

“I think I was able to just stay in a very calm and neutral mindset and just kind of let my training work,” Jespersgaard said.

Wolfrum said she was impressed by her team’s success and ability to overcome adversity. After losing two events in a row, the Bruins rebounded to take the final event of the weekend, the 400-yard freestyle.

“I’m really really proud of their hustle, of their effort,” Wolfrum said. “These were two teams that on paper we’re pretty well matched with and I think what we did a great job of is just showing up on the day of and just being better.

Next up on the schedule for UCLA is the Trojan Diving Invite from Nov. 11 to Nov. 13 for the diving side of the squad, followed by the Ohio State Invitational from Nov. 17 to Nov. 19 for the swimmers.

“We’re going to start resting a little bit, recovering a little bit, starting to get sharp for the Ohio State Invitational,” Wolfrum said.