FEDERAL WAY, Wash. -- The No. 19 UCLA swimming and diving team tackles postseason play Wednesday, when the Pac-12 Swimming and Diving Championships begin at the Weyerhaeuser King County Aquatic Center. The first three days of the four-day event will be streamed live through Pac-12.com and the Pac-12 Now App. The finals on Day 4 will be broadcast live across all seven Pac-12 Networks.
The Bruins are one of five Pac-12 ranked in the most recent installment of the CSCAA/TYR Top 25. In addition to UCLA's No. 19 ranking, three teams (No. 1 Stanford, No. 2 California and No. 5 USC) find themselves in the top five, while Arizona currently holds the No. 17 spot.
Competition will begin Wednesday afternoon (1:00 p.m., PT) with the Men's 1 Meter event. The evening session (6:00 p.m.) will feature the finals of the Men's 1 Meter, as well as two women's relay events. The 200 Medley Relay and 800 Freestyle Medley will each feature four Bruin quartets, including the A teams Linnea Mack, Emma Schanz, Katie Grover and Madison White and Mack, Kenisha Liu, White and Katy Campbell, respectively.
Thursday's action will begin at 10:30 a.m., with the preliminaries of the 500 Freestyle, 200 Individual Medley and 50 Freestyle. Included in a group of Bruin swimmers scheduled to take part in those events are Kenisha Liu, who swam a 1:58.09 in the 200 IM at the SMU Classic and Mack, who posted a 21.93 in the 50 Free at the Texas Invitational.
The first women's diving event will take place Thursday afternoon, as the 1-Meter preliminaries will begin at 2:15 p.m. Seven Bruins are expected to compete in the event, including Eloise Belanger, who posted a score of 321.90 this season at Hawaii, and Maria Polyakova, who won the event at last year's Pac-12 Championships with a score of 324.80. The finals will take place later that afternoon at 4:45 p.m. Beginning at 6:00 p.m., swimmers will compete in the finals of the 500 Free, 200 IM and 50 Free. The 200 Freestyle Relay, which will feature the Bruin team of Isabella Goldsmith, Mack, Grover and White that recently swam a 1:29.89 at USC, will also take place Thursday evening.
UCLA's Emma Schanz will take a shot at a Pac-12 championship in the 400 Individual Medley Friday, while Linnea Mack will be put to the test in the 100 Backstroke, as preliminaries for both of those events, as well as the 100 Butterfly, 200 Freestyle and 100 Breaststroke begin at 10:30 a.m. The 3-Meter diving competition will take place Friday at 12:15 p.m., as Polyakova (339.55, first), Annika Lenz (320.45, third) and Belanger (319.80, fourth) hold three of the conference's top four regular-season scores in the event. The finals for each of those events will take place Friday night (6:00 p.m.). Also taking place during that session will be the 400 Medley Relay, which is expected to include the Bruin quartet of Mack, Sarah Kaunitz, Grover and Liu.
On the final day of competition, preliminary rounds of the 200 Backstroke, 100 Freestyle, 200 Breaststroke and 200 Butterfly will begin at 10:30 a.m. Schanz (2:09.18 in the 200 Breast) and Grover (200 Fly) will look to improve on their team-best scores in hopes of reaching the finals of those events at 6:35 p.m. The final diving event will take place beginning at 12:30 with the Platform, and will also conclude that evening. Also scheduled for Saturday night are the 1650 Freestyle and the 400 Freestyle Relay, which is expected to feature the UCLA team of Goldsmith, Mack, Liu and White, which swam a 3:18.01 in the event at the Texas Invitational.
Bruin swimmers will look to build on fast times swam during the regular-season finale meet at USC. UCLA season-best times were established in 10 different events, as Grover (100 Fly, 200 Fly), Liu (200 Free, 200 IM) and Sandra Soe (1000 Free, 1650 Free) set two, Mack (100 Back) and White (200 Back) set one and the 200 Free and 200 Medley Relay teams each topped their previous best marks.
For more information on the Pac-12 Swimming and Diving Championships, including history, a complete schedule of events and how to watch, visit the Pac-12 Championship page HERE.