The Bruins had a tough week.

They fell to the Utes for the first time ever, struggled with illness and were on the road all week due to the Los Angeles fires.

So while the team fell in both of this weekend’s dual meets, coach Jordan Cordry said the three school records they picked up and the grit they showed, made it a success.

“As everybody in LA feels, the past 10 days has been heavy and tiring at minimum,” Cordry said. “For us to be able to turn it around after some challenges this week, far from an ideal week to turn it around, and come up with a ton of great swimming and diving, but three events that were the best in Bruin history was something that made me really proud.”

No. 24 UCLA swim and dive (3-4) fell to No. 3 Stanford (4-0) on Friday and No. 10 California (4-1) on Saturday in the Bay Area. The Bruins lost by more than 75 points in both meets, falling to the Cardinal 188-111 and the Golden Bears 187-106.

UCLA spent the week prior to competition on Stanford’s campus, away from the smoke that spread across LA this week. Senior Eva Carlson said the Bruins were grateful for the Cardinal’s hospitality.

“It is obviously really generous of them to open, not only their pool doors but their academic rooms, their weight room, everything that they have that they use, they let us use,” Carlson said. “The girls on the team were so nice and generous and offering to drive to pick us up stuff or help in any way they could.”

The Bruins kicked off both dual meets with school record-setting relay performances. They started Friday by breaking the record in the 200-yard medley relay, and Saturday saw the school record in the 400-yard medley fall.

The Bruins’ 200-medley relay squad – junior Fay Lustria, graduate student Emma Harvey, senior Ana Jih-Schiff and Carlson – have eyed this school record all season long.

“That was one that we were super close to, first at midseason, we were less than a tenth (of a second) away. Then also at UNLV, we were right on it, and to go under it at Stanford was just so awesome and super exciting,” Jih-Schiff said. “Before we were all talking about how we felt like this one was going to be a good one, so afterward, it was just awesome to see that it all came together.”

The record previously sat at 1:36:64. The Bruins dropped .28 to etch their names on the record board.

Cordry added that the team struggled with illness during their stint at Stanford.

“This past week, the number of flu and stomach flu and COVID and everything is going around right now,” Cordry said. “We were down so many impact players and so to still be able to have two of the best meets in Bruin history against two really hard teams, when we work down a number of impact athletes on the swimming and diving side, it’s really remarkable.”

The 400-yard medley relay record now sits at 3:31.94, breaking the previous best by over half a second.

The third school record of the weekend came from freshman Karolina Piechowicz’s 59.30 time in the 100-yard breaststroke against Stanford.

“That was a swim that our whole team can say we’ve been waiting to see from Karolina,” Cordry said. “I’ve known she had something like that in her, but it got our team pretty hyped yesterday when she did that swim because she was out of an outside lane, she had a big ol’ celebration to go with it, and then the rest of her racing, she had a ton of swagger.”

Junior diver Eden Cheng recorded three wins on the weekend, taking the title in the 3-meter against both teams and the 1-meter against Cal.

UCLA will round out its dual meet schedule for the year Jan. 31 against USC.