LOS ANGELES – UCLA junior Maria Polyakova (Penza, Russia/Moscow Prep School) was named the Pac-12 Diver of the Month for February today as announced by the league.

Polyakova earned UCLA's first Diver of the Meet award at Pac-12 Championships, after she reached the podium in all three diving events. Included in that was her first Pac-12 title in the 3-meter competition, which she claimed with a near-school-record score of 385.00. She also fell just short in defending her 2016 Pac-12 title in the 1-meter, as she finished just 2.60 points behind Stanford's Kassidy Cook with a score of 335.75. Polyakova wrapped up her Pac-12 Championships participation with a personal-best score of 259.70 in the platform and a third-place finish.

Earlier in the month, the junior posted two Top-3 finishes in UCLA's meet at USC. Polyakova posted a score of 310.65 to finish second in the 3-meter event, as well as a 1-meter score of 279.60, good for third.

Polyakova will participate in the 1-meter and 3-meter events at this week's NCAA Championships. She qualified for the trip to Indianapolis with wins in both events at last week's NCAA Zone E Championships, which took place in Flagstaff, Ariz.

This is Polyakova's fourth career Diver of the Month honor and the 14th overall for UCLA. She previously earned the award for the months of December 2015, November 2015 and December 2015.

ALSO NOMINATED: Mara Aiacoboae, ASU; Kassidy Cook, STAN. 

2016-17 PAC-12 WOMEN'S SWIMMER AND DIVER OF THE MONTH

	Diver of the Month
February	Maria Polyakova, UCLA
January	Kassidy Cook, Stanford
December	Eloise Belanger, UCLA
November	Phoebe LaMay, California