Senior sprinter/hurdler Tamaal Myers walked off the track and embraced track and field director Joanna Hayes in front of a celebrating UCLA men’s team.

Joanna Hayes’ path has come full circle, tracing the arc of the rivalry itself. A former star hurdler for the Bruins from 1996 to 1999, she later returned to Westwood as an assistant coach from 2014 to 2016. She then spent eight years across town with the Trojans, where she established herself as one of the nation’s premier hurdling coaches, producing NCAA champions such as Anna Cockrell and Jasmine Jones while contributing to the 2018 and 2021 women’s outdoor national title teams.

Hayes then returned to her alma mater as director.

Myers followed after spending the first half of his eligibility at USC.

Now, they embraced each other at the rivalry meet’s conclusion. Myers donned a crown on his head as he helped secure a UCLA victory by earning five points in the 400-meter hurdles against opponents he used to race beside.

“I run LA to be quite honest,” Myers said.

The UCLA men’s team earned a dual-meet victory at Katherine B. Loker Track Stadium on Sunday by a score of 87-76, while the UCLA women’s squad fell 94-69 in a dual meet against crosstown rival USC.

USC’s women have now won 11 of the last 12 rivalry meetings, with the sole UCLA victory coming last year in Hayes’ debut year.

“For me, this meet is part of the journey,” Hayes said. “Some of those performances outweigh whatever the final score is. Do we want to win? Absolutely. But if you only focus on the outcome, you miss everything that goes into it. I’m really proud of how they competed and the way they showed up today.”

Notably, the Bruins swept the Trojans in the hurdle events.

Sophomore sprinter/hurdler Celeste Polzonetti had one of the Bruins’ top results in the 100-meter hurdles, clocking a personal-best 12.98-second mark. Junior hurdler Davis Davis-Lyric followed Polzonetti’s outing with a men’s 110-meter hurdle triumph to add five points to the Bruin team score.

One of the most emphatic finishes of the day, however, came from sprinter/hurdler Kapiolani Coleman.

Looking ahead to USC’s Falyn Lott while coming down the front stretch, Coleman was multiple strides behind. It seemed Lott would seal the victory until the redshirt sophomore extended her strides to close the distance between the two competitors. Lott tumbled across the finish line just a fraction of a second behind Coleman, who completed the comeback to win the 400-meter hurdles.

“The last 100 (meters), I was in second, and all I could think about was my team, my coaches and all the work we’ve put in,” Coleman said. “I just wanted to give it everything I had left. I had that mindset that nothing was stopping me from meeting her at the line. Nothing personal, but that’s just the competitive spirit I have in a meet like this.”

Overall, the weekend underscored everything that defines a rivalry: upsets, dramatic finishes and heightened stakes from start to finish.

In the end, the Battle of Los Angeles proved to be evenly matched, with each program leaving with a win and a loss.

UCLA will look to carry that momentum into a championship setting going into the Big Ten Outdoor Championships from May 15 to 17 in Lincoln, Nebraska.

“It means a lot,” Hayes said. “I’ve been part of this meet as an athlete, as an assistant coach on both sides and now as a head coach, so I know the importance of it. This is really the beginning of championship season where the adrenaline is high, they’re competing, they’re fighting, and that’s what prepares them for what’s ahead.”