Champions_TeamChampions_Team
Women's Swimming & Diving

Three in a Row

Day One Recap | Day Two Recap | Day Three Recap | Results

FEDERAL WAY, Wash. - Behind four individual titles on the final day of competition, Stanford women's swimming and diving captured its third straight Pac-12 Conference championship on Saturday at Weyerhaeuser King County Aquatic Center.

Stanford is the first school to win three consecutive Pac-12 Conference titles since Arizona from 2006-08. The Wildcats and Cardinal are the only programs to three-peat as Stanford also did so as champions of the first 13 conference meets (1987-99). 

"I'm really proud of our team," said Paul A. Violich Director of Women's Swimming Greg Meehan. "I think the score reflects a really strong performance from our team, A-to-Z. It is probably as deep a team as we have ever had. I'm just really proud of the impact that each and every one of them has made -- from all 21 swimmers and our four divers, it's just been a great week."

Stanford has won four titles under Meehan, and has never finished lower than second in his seven seasons. The Cardinal also extended its streak to 10 straight seasons in the top two at the conference meet (six titles, four runner-up finishes). Overall, this is Stanford's 22nd conference title, most all-time.

The top-ranked Cardinal's 1,775 points were the third-most ever scored at the Pac-12 Championships – just 1.5 points shy of last year's national title team and 29 points fewer than Stanford's 1992 national championship team that famously featured several Olympians, including Summer Sanders and Jenny Thompson.

Cal finished as the runner-up with 1,352 points. The 423-point difference is the largest margin of victory at this meet since Stanford outscored runner-up UCLA by 599.5 points in 1996. Over the four-day meet, the top-ranked Cardinal won six individual events. USC finished third with 1,183.5 points.
 

Nine-Time Champion

Senior Ella Eastin won her third event of the week with a school-record finish of 1:48.53 in the 200-yard backstroke. It marked her ninth individual Pac-12 title, which is tied for fourth-most in conference history. Eastin, who won the 500 freestyle on Thursday and the 400 individual medley on Friday, broke the previous school record set by former teammate Janet Hu in 2017, by nearly a full second (1:49.36).

"I've been training backstroke for my 400 IM and I think that's been the best training I could have done with Greg (Meehan)," Eastin said. "It's allowed me to experiment with different events, and I have awesome training partners, which is pretty obvious by looking at that heat. I was just trying as hard as I could to put my hand on the wall. We had a really good showing in that event for Stanford."  

Stanford swept the podium and finished 1-2-3-4-6 in the event. Freshman Taylor Ruck also broke the previous school record as the runner-up at 1:48.67, while freshman Lucie Nordmann took third (1:51.34), junior Erin Voss placed fourth (1:51.43) and junior Allie Szekely was sixth (1:54.51). 

It was Stanford's first title in the event since former Olympian Maya DiRado took first in 2012 -- the seven-year drought was the longest in any event for Stanford.

 

First-Time Champions

It was an emotional start to the night. Senior Leah Stevens, in her final career Pac-12 race, won her first career conference title. The Louisville, Kentucky, native earned gold in the 1,650 free with a finish of 15:51.26. In the dramatic finish, she won the mile-long race by less than a half second. Freshman Morgan Tankersley was third (15:59.68) and junior Megan Byrnes was sixth (16:05.50).

Stanford had two more first-time winners. In the 200 breaststroke, sophomore Grace Zhao posted the third-fastest time in school history and hit the wall first at 2:07.07. The Palo Alto, California, product just outpaced some of her teammates as Allie Raab was fourth (2:08.11), Zoe Bartel was fifth (2:08.93) and senior Kim Williams was 10th (2:10.74).

"I just relied on my training," Zhao said. "I've been really consistent in practice, and seeing Kim Williams, our senior breaststroker, race before me -- I got really emotional. I just hammered it in toward the wall. I just went for it."

A short time later, sophomore diver Mia Paulsen won her first conference crown when she took top honors on the platform. For the third straight night, Stanford had three divers reach the finals. Paulsen had the top score at 256.30, while Lenz earned bronze (242.20) and freshman Carolina Sculti, who scored in all three diving events, was seventh (204.95).

"It feels so good," Paulsen said. "I wanted to represent my school that I love so much. It feels great. I just tried to make the corrections that I needed to make, and focus on what I had to do, and I didn't even pay attention to what scores I got. I just tried to get it done." 

 

More Podiums, More Scoring

Sophomore Katie Drabot was the runner-up in the 200 butterfly. She earned silver with a career-best finish of 1:51.42 -- improving her standing as the third-fastest in school history. Sophomore Brooke Forde was fourth at 1:53.67, while Hannah Kukurugya was 14th at 1:58.18.

Stanford also had four scorers in the 100 free final. Sophomore Lauren Pitzer was fifth (48.25), while freshman Anya Goeders was ninth (48.71), freshman Amalie Fackenthal was 12th (48.94) and sophomore Ashley Volpenhein was 21st (49.60).
 

A Look Ahead

Next up are the NCAA Zone Diving Championships, March 11-13 in Flagstaff, Arizona, and the NCAA Championships, March 20-23 in Austin, Texas. Stanford seeks to become the first program to win three consecutive national championships since Auburn from 2002-04.

Stanford last won three straight NCAA titles during a five-year run from 1992-96. In all, only four schools have won three straight national titles -- Texas (1984-88), Stanford (1992-96), Georgia (1999-2001) and Auburn (2002-04).