Despite a loss on paper, the Bruins pulled off multiple personal bests in their highest-energy meet of the season.

UCLA swim and dive (6-3, 3-3 Pac-12) dropped a tight meet against No. 10 USC (6-2, 4-2 Pac-12) at Uytengsu Aquatics Center on Friday. With a final score of 148-152, UCLA took the swim portion of the race but failed to record a win in either diving event.

“The energy was absolutely incredible,” said senior swimmer Sophia Kosturos. “It was definitely unmatched from anything else I’ve experienced while I’ve been here at UCLA.”

The energy was a joint effort, according to Kosturos. UCLA teamed up with the Utah men’s swim and dive team – also facing USC – to help each other turn up the energy.

“We recruited them as our men’s team for the day,” Kosturos said. “They joined in on our cheers, and we cheered for them, and we were all united against USC, which was pretty fun.”

Kosturos is a member of the 200-yard medley relay who started out the meet finishing second and earning an NCAA B Cut.

Even though the Bruins couldn’t clinch a victory, coach Jordan Wolfrum said she has no regrets.

“On paper, the way this meet looked before we came into it, we should have lost by 95 points,” Wolfrum said. “So to come here and bring it to within four is pretty exceptional.”

The Bruins recorded a school record in the final race of the day with a 3:14.41 in the 400-yard freestyle relay. Across the individual swim events, the blue and gold recorded 15 personal-best and eight season-best times.

Sophomore swimmer Paige MacEachern said the entire team’s performance was one to be proud of.

“I’m really proud of every single person,” MacEachern said. “We started off really strong and kept that momentum, love and spirit, and we went for it and tried to beat them.”

Senior swimmer Rachel Rhee took the first leg of the school record 400-yard freestyle relay, notching three personal times across two wins and a second place.

Wolfrum credited Rhee’s hard work and leadership this season, as well as her tone-setting performance Friday.

“She’s a really consistent trainer in the pool and in the weight room and a great leader when it comes to work ethic and focus,” Wolfrum said. “This year, it’s really paying off in a whole lot of places. She kicked off the meet with a huge swim in the 200 freestyle. And from there, she was just money in the bank, which was pretty awesome.”

In addition to the school record race at the end of the meet, Wolfrum said the 100-yard butterfly was an incredibly important result.

After winning by .03 seconds last year, senior swimmer Gabby Dang cut it even closer this year, pulling off the win by just .01 seconds.

“That race was honestly epic,” Kosturos said. “Gabby is my roommate and one of my best friends, and so I knew that she had it and before the race I was like, ‘You got it. You can beat her’ because she beat her last year.”

Kosturos herself pulled off a third-place result – and a personal best – in the 100 fly, despite it not being one of her main events.

“It was fun for me to be in that race with Gabby and get the best time since it’s not a race that I usually do,” Kostuors said. ” Very unexpected, but I knew that I had to pull through for our team.”

The Bruins will have another chance against the Trojans in two weeks at the Pac-12 tournament. Because of the way that scoring values depth more in the tournament than in a dual meet, Wolfrum and Kosturos both said they believe the team has a decent chance of beating USC and California in two weeks.

With its 24-woman squad set for the Pac-12 tournament, UCLA’s focus will shift to its competition in Seattle.