The Bruins are ramping up their season amid four meets in 14 days.

No. 24 UCLA swim and dive (2-1) is headed to the Ute Natatorium Saturday for a tri-meet against Utah (1-1, 0-1 Big 12) and UC Santa Barbara (6-1, 4-0 Big West). The Bruins lead the all-time series against the Utes 9-0, with their most recent victory coming last season at Spieker Aquatics Center by a score of 190-106.

Utah fell to Arizona by two points this season – the same squad UCLA beat 189-106 two weeks later.

But Coach Jordan Cordry said the Bruins aren’t expecting a walk in the park.

“Utah is a very, very hard place to swim well,” Cordry said. “There is an altitude that gets every visiting team there. You’re racing against a team that is not impacted by the altitude, and the pool is not the fastest, so you have to go in there with clear expectations of ‘we’re racing here,’ and you kind of have to put the clock out of your mind.”

Utah’s altitude – nearly 4,700 feet above sea level – is not something the Bruins are used to.

But junior swimmer Fay Lustria has experience.

“When you’re competing and racing hard at altitude, it gets hard on your muscles and it gets hard to breathe,” Lustria said. “Our coach always prepares us for that anytime we go over there, making sure that we fuel up, we stay hydrated and just do all the little things we can to make sure that – even though it’s going to be tough out there – we perform at the best of our abilities.”

And as it faces a series of multiple away meets, Cordry said the team must continue to work hard to make up for missed practices due to travel.

“It does mean we have to keep our foot on the gas when we are training because we just miss more time. There’s a cost to training, to travel. You lose a day in the weight room, or you lose a day of practice. There’s a cost on your body to go travel there and back,” Cordry said. “We have to adjust, and that just means that it’s harder.

For UCLA’s divers, their weekend will be expanded, facing off against three schools – Utah, Brigham Young and Wisconsin.

Senior diver Maya Salvitti said this meet is an opportunity to practice competing and running through their list of dives.

“It’s just good to have more meets under your belt, because for us it’s a mental game, and competing is a very different mindset than practice,” Salvitti said. “It’s just good to have more experience of competing under our belt before we get to the big ones.”

The swim and dive sections of the team will be traveling and operating separately for this meet, with the majority of the dive competition occurring Friday and the swim competition taking place Saturday.

Salvitti said the separation can sometimes benefit the dive team, whose desired energy can be starkly different.

“It’s kind of nice to travel with just us sometimes, especially because for swimming they want to be all amped up and ready to race. But for us, we kind of want to calm down,” Salvitti said. “So sometimes it’s nicer to just travel with a small group.”

The divers will kickoff their competition Friday evening, while the swimmers will compete at noon Saturday.