FEDERAL WAY, Wash. – A pair of second-place relays highlighted the first day of the Pac-12 Women's Swimming and Diving Championships for No. 1 Stanford on Wednesday at the Weyerhaeuser King County Aquatic Center.
To open the meet, Ally Howe, Kim Williams, Janet Hu and Simone Manuel led the Cardinal to a runner-up finish in the 200-yard medley relay. The foursome, which finished in 1:34.79, was second only to Cal's meet record of 1:34.13.
In the 800 free relay, Katie Drabot took the first leg in 1:45.88, and gave way to Ella Eastin, who finished her 200 yards in 1:42.77. Freshman Brooke Forde, in her first collegiate postseason swim, finished the third leg in 1:44.00. The Cardinal was in third place when sophomore Katie Ledecky hit the water. The five-time Olympic gold medalist finished with the fastest split of the night at 1:41.21, and nearly brought the Cardinal all the way back, but Cal won at 6:52.62. Stanford stopped the clock at 6:53.86.
After the first day of competition, Cal leads with 128 points, and Stanford sits in second with 112. USC finished third in both relays to garner 108 points.
The first full day of competition starts on Thursday at 10:30 a.m. PT. The 1-meter diving finals will begin at 4:45 p.m., and swimming finals will begin at 6 p.m. Events include the 500 free, 200 individual medley, 50 free and 200 free relay. Coverage of the prelims and finals will be streamed live on Pac-12.com/live/championships and the Pac-12 Now app.
Follow @StanfordWSwim on twitter, instagram and Facebook. Several swimmers will be taking over the team's instagram stories this week for some inside access into conference championship week.
Hi Everyone!! Follow along with me today as we take on Day 1 of PAC-12s????
A post shared by Stanford W. Swimming (@stanfordwswim) on Feb 21, 2018 at 8:50am PST
#GoStanford