Arizona junior Marcus Titus gets in the blocks for the 50-yard freestyle. The former Flowing Wells swimmer was 15th in 21.54 seconds.

Jill Torrance / arizona daily star

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Over the Hillenbrand Aquatic Center speakers blared the music.

"What does it take to be No. 1? Two is not a winner," sang rapper Nelly as the Arizona men's swimming and diving team joined in.

The joyous Wildcats will likely soon earn their first-ever No. 1 ranking in the country after beating Texas on Saturday afternoon in the dual meet. The Longhorns are currently top-ranked, while Arizona is No. 2. The UA last beat Texas at a dual meet in Austin in 2006.

The undefeated Cats won Saturday's meet with 12 event titles. That should be enough to secure them the top spot when the national rankings are announced by collegeswimming.com in two weeks. The team score of 200.50 points to 152.50 was announced after Arizona's win in the 400-yard freestyle relay.

"I couldn't be more proud," UA coach Frank Busch said. "You just hope that your guys compete at this time of the year, and they competed very well today."

Arizona began the second day of competition with a 20-point lead over the Longhorns.

"We knew Texas is a really tough team and they would try to come back and beat us," the UA's Albert Subirats said. "We wanted to get the first win in the relay today and then take one race at a time."

The Wildcat team of Subirats, Marcus Titus, Darian Townsend and Jordan Smith won the 200 medley relay with time of 1 minute 28.05 seconds to start the day. Texas finished in 1:29.39.

"We won some close races, and that's probably what made the difference today," Busch said.

After dropping the next two events, Arizona's lead slipped to 129-112. Then Subirats won the 100 backstroke in 47.16. Josh Arreguin also won the 100 breast stroke in 55.06.

Going into the 200 butterfly, Arizona led 155.5-123.5 but lost ground when Texas' Ricky Berens (1:47.38) beat Cory Chitwood (1:49.35).

The Wildcats then secured the win with Subirats taking the 50 free in 20.28 and Townsend earning the 200 IM title in 1:48.61. Subirats, Nicholas Nilo, Smith and Townsend closed out the meet by winning the 400 free relay.

"I feel like we've got some momentum going. And having momentum going into the conference is not something that we have always had a lot of," Busch said. "I think winning today certainly can't hurt us down the line."

Arizona faces in-state rival Arizona State on Feb. 16 in Tempe.

"We just need to carry on like we are," Townsend said. "We've got one more meet against ASU up in Tempe. If we can beat them, we're undefeated going into Pac-10s. We've never had that before."

The conference championship is next month in Long Beach, Calif. Arizona earned third-place finishes at the Pac-10 and NCAA championships in 2007.