UCLA
Stanford
Bruins Topped by Stanford, 178-119
January 31, 2020 | Swimming & Diving
LOS ANGELES โ The UCLA swim and dive team suffered a 178-119 loss to defending national champion and No. 5-ranked Stanford on Friday afternoon at Spieker Aquatics Center. The Pac-12 matchup also served as the program's Centennial Meet, honoring UCLA's 100th anniversary.
The loss snapped a winning streak of seven meets for the Bruins, who dropped to 7-1 and 4-1 in Pac-12 competition. The Cardinal improved to 5-0.
Freshman Rachel Rhee claimed UCLA's lone win of the afternoon, finishing the 100 free in 50.56, the second-best time of her collegiate career.
Freshman diver Hannah Butler also had a standout afternoon, setting new PRs and nailing down NCAA Zone Championships-qualifying scores in both 1-meter and 3-meter diving. She becomes the fourth Bruin diver this year to qualify for Zones.
The Bruins started the meet with a narrow loss in the 200 medley relay. The UCLA As led after the first half of the race thanks to strong backstroke and breaststroke legs from Sophia Kosturos and Claire Grover, respectively. Both of Stanford's relay squads were hot on their tails however, with the Bs ultimately squeaking out a win at 1:39.36, just ahead of UCLA's 1:39.80.
That was the first of many close calls for UCLA in the meet.
Grover just missed out on a first-place finish in the 100 breast, as her 1:01.99 was just over a half-second behind Stanford's Allie Raab. Just a few minutes later, her 22.93 in the 50 free was .07 seconds behind first place Emma Wheal.
The 200 fly was the closest race of the day, with the top three swimmers finishing within .19 seconds of each other. Senior Amy Okada led for the majority of the race but ended up a tough-luck third at 1:58.92.
Butler was the runner-up in the 1M championship, which began about an hour before the swim portion of the meet. She posted a score of 273.60, the best by any Bruin this year not named Ruby Neave. That mark topped her previous best of 253.28.
She followed that up with a third-place showing in 3M, tallying a collegiate-best 286.73. Both of her scores were Zones-qualifying marks. Neave was the runner-up in 3M at 298.20, her third-best score in that event this year.
UCLA is right back in action on Saturday, hosting No. 2 Cal at Spieker. Diving starts at 11:00 a.m. with swim following at 12:00 p.m.
Players Mentioned
