The Cougars return to Gibb Pool this weekend to take on California in a two-day meet.

Over the next two days, Washington State will compete against a California Golden Bears squad coming off a hugely successful 2014-15 campaign where it captured the NCAA championship.

The last time WSU and California had a dual meet was during the 2013 season in Berkeley. Cal came away with a 164-89 win over the Cougars.

The WSU swim team is currently ranked 16th in the nation, according to collegeswimming.com, ahead of No. 17 Stanford, who the Cougs knocked off two weeks ago in their home pool. 16^th is the highest the swim team has been nationally ranked in school history.

The Cougars are projected as the No. 3 team in a stout Pac-12 conference, which features seven ranked squads.

California is led by Head Coach Teri McKeever, who is going into her 24th season leading the Bears. McKeever was the head coach of the U.S. women’s Olympic team during the 2012 Games in London.

“We want to do the same thing we did against Stanford and swim our best,” WSU Head Coach Tom Jager said. “This team is confident, and they’re strong. We train as well if not better than anyone in the country, and we get the best out of these kids.”

Swimming is both a team and individual sport. For the team to be successful as a whole, the individuals must be successful on their own, Jager said. The Cougars have identified that as their key to success.

Fans came out in full force for the Cougars’ last meet and Jager said that is definitely a motivating factor in the team’s performance.

“When people come up here, they think they’re going to come swim with five people watching, and all of a sudden we’ve got 200 people and the place going crazy and the Cougs love it,” Jager said.

WSU and Cal will begin their meet at 5:00 p.m. today at Gibb Pool in Smith Gym. They will return again at 10:00 a.m. Saturday morning.

Reporting by Payton Dineen