FEDERAL WAY, Wash. -- No. 1 Stanford women's swimming and diving opened the Pac-12 Championships with a pair of second-place finishes on Wednesday night.
After the opening night's two events, Stanford is in second with 112 points. Cal leads with 128 points. It is an identical score to the end of the first day last year when Stanford won the Pac-12 title with 1,776.5 points -- the second-most points in conference history.
Stanford opened the meet with an NCAA 'A' cut time and runner-up finish in the 200-yard medley relay. Ella Eastin (24.07), Grace Zhao (27.29), Amalie Fackenthal (22.72) and Taylor Ruck (21.43) combined to finish with an NCAA automatic qualifying time of 1:35.51. Eastin gave the Cardinal an early lead with the fastest backstroke split of the night, but in a close three-way race to the wall, Cal touched first and won with a time of 1:35.21.
In the second and final event of the day, the Cardinal finished second in the 800 freestyle relay with another 'A' qualifying time of 6:51.69. Ruck opened with the fourth-fastest 200 free in school history at 1:42.80 and was followed by Eastin (1:42.55) and Katie Drabot (1:44.64). Brooke Forde took the anchor leg in 1:41.70, but Cal edged out the Cardinal with a winning time of 6:50.63.
The four-day championship meet continues through Saturday inside Weyerhaeuser King County Aquatic Center. The second day begins with swimming prelims at 10:30 a.m., and finals at 6 p.m. Events on the second day include the 500 free, 200 individual medley, 50 free and the 200 free relay. Diving prelims begin on the 1-meter at 1:50 p.m. with the finals slated to start at 4 p.m.
