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It hadn’t occurred to too many members of the UCLA swimming and diving team that they might walk away with their second Pac-10 Championship in three years.

On the plane ride there, they thought only of achieving more personal bests. But from the start of the competition, the Bruins dominated every other school, and captured the Pac-10 crown with 1,399 points.

“It was an awesome experience,” junior Malin Svahnstrom said. “We didn’t even talk about winning before the first day. But after that, we realized we were ahead of all the other teams by 10 points and we started to think, maybe we can win this.”

Having lost their dual meets against Stanford, USC and Cal, UCLA managed to surpass not only its own expectations, but also upset the competition.

Thursday’s top performances in the 200-meter and 400-meter medley relay teams gave UCLA an early lead in the conference.

The competition continued through Saturday, where the gap between UCLA and the rest of the other schools only grew. Stanford finished second with 1,308 points, and USC followed with 1,138.

“I’m really proud of the team,” junior Kristen Lewis said. “It’s just a lot of our hard work paying off.”

Lewis placed fifth in the 200m butterfly, behind teammate Kim Vandenberg in second. Other leaders in the pool were junior Sarah Platzer in third place in the 100m freestyle race (49.28), and Naoko Watanabe taking fifth in the 200m backstroke.

The divers were led by senior Regan Gosnell with a third place finish on the platform, and by senior Jen McNally in eighth.

Up next is the NCAA Championships held on March 20.