Feb. 2, 2008
Los Angeles, Calif. - No. 2 Stanford (6-1, 5-0 Pac-10) continued to roll through an unbeaten Pac-10 dual meet season with a 180-120 victory at No. 21 USC (4-5, 1-5 Pac-10) on Saturday at the USC McDonald's Swim Stadium. Stanford spread out its other six individual victories with one win each by Elizabeth Durot (1650 free), Elaine Breeden (200 fly), Kate Dwelley (50 free), Brooke Bishop (100 free), Laura Wadden (200 back) and Liz Smith (400 IM).
The Cardinal also swept both the 200 medley and 200 free relays. Fiona O'Donnell-McCarthy, Breeden and Dwelley swam on both relays with Caroline Bruce joining the trio for the medley and Bishop for the free.
"We put a little more pressure on more people to come through in different areas and they responded really well," offered Stanford head coach Lea Maurer. "We're going to need a lot of people to contribute when we get to the Pac-10's and NCAA's."
"We did a lot of risk taking," added Maurer. "We put our swimmers in much more specific challenging situations in terms of race strategy and execution, and they did a really good job executing and thinking about racing instead of just their times."
Breeden and Smith had Stanford's only NCAA `A' times of the meet for the Cardinal with Breeden going 1:58.72 to win the 200 fly and Smith 4:15.25 to take the 400 IM.
Rebecca Soni had NCAA `A' times in both her 100 (1:01.70) and 200 (2:10.33) breast victories for USC.
"We were just trying to focus on little pieces of our races rather than focus on the times and everyone stepped up and did great," confirmed Bishop.
Stanford will next compete with a divers only meet versus BYU on February 15 before hosting California in a Pac-10 dual meet to end the regular season on February 16 (1:00 pm, PT).