New year, new beginnings.

Still searching for a dual meet victory, UCLA swim and dive (0-1-1) will travel to La Jolla to face UC San Diego (5-0) Saturday in its first competition of 2026.

UCLA athletics did not provide interview availability for the team’s athletes or coach.

The Bruins’ swim squad is coming off a sixth-place finish at the Ohio State Invite, while their diving counterpart finished 2025 by sweeping every event to win the Riverside Diving Invite.

Although La Jolla is not home territory for the Bruins, it presents a more familiar setting than the out-of-state travel that dominated the team’s fall slate.

UCLA has not yet hosted a meet for the swimming squad this season, but it will welcome Iowa on Jan. 9 – the first time in program history that Spieker Aquatics Center will host a Big Ten opponent.

While breaststroke was an area of strength for coach Jordan Cordry’s squad last year, the departure of sophomore Karolina Piechowicz – who holds the school record of 59.28 in the 100-yard breaststroke – and the graduation of Ana Jih-Schiff – who represented the Bruins at the NCAA tournament last spring in the 100- and 200-yard breaststroke – has weakened the impact of the stroke group.

Jih-Schiff and then-graduate student Emma Harvey were fixtures of multiple Bruin relay squads, including the 400-yard medley that set and re-broke the school record last season.

But UCLA’s relays have yet to find the same success this season.

Senior Rosie Murphy has stepped up to lead the squad in the wake of the multiple departures, and her time of 1:52.39 in the 200-yard backstroke not only set a school record but was the 10th fastest time nationally, earning her Big Ten Swimmer of the Week honors on Nov 12.

Freshman Jada Duncan also earned weekly conference honors after she touched the wall at 22.02 in the 50-free at a dual meet against then-No. 18 Arizona State date – good for 15th-fastest in the nation.

The diving cohort has maintained roster stability, returning both of last year’s NCAA tournament diving representatives in junior Molly Brascia and senior Eden Cheng. Brascia placed first in the 1-meter and 3-meter competitions at the Riverside Diving Invite.

The Tritons are undefeated in dual meets this season but have yet to go head-to-head with a ranked team. UCSD faced its only top-25 competition of the season at the Triton Invite, No. 4 Stanford and then-No. 6 California both bested the host, which outscored UCSD by 279 and 582.5 points, respectively.

Cordry’s squad has fallen out of the past two rankings after beginning the season at No. 24. UCLA fell to unranked Purdue and Kentucky – in addition to then-No. 3 Louisville, then-No. 10 Indiana and then-No. 14 Ohio State – at its latest meet.

UCLA is undefeated against UCSD in the schools’ all-time series, and the last time the two met in January 2025, the Bruins bested the Tritons 177-133.

Since then, the Tritons have expanded their roster, which now includes Asia Kozan – the Big West Swimmer of the Week on Nov. 25 after winning every single one of her individual events at the eight-team Trailblazer Invite. Four other UCSD athletes have earned the honor so far this year, with Kozan doing it twice.

Events begin at 11 a.m. at the Canyonview Aquatic Center.