They knew the competition would be weaker and that they were expected to do well, but no one on the No. 5 women’s swimming and diving team expected this.

A second-place finish in the final event of the Pacific-10 Conference meet left the victorious Cardinal one point short of 1500, as Stanford finished with a 262-point lead over runner-up No. 6 Arizona.

“Obviously I am incredibly proud of our team’s performance,” head coach Richard Quick said. “We had a wonderful, wonderful meet. We had a great team effort really throughout our lineup. It was a spectacular energy we had throughout the meet.”

The Cardinal won eight of the 21 events and took the top two spots in three of them. Coming into the meet, Stanford swimmers had only reached the NCAA “A” standard time, which guarantees a spot in the national championship, in five events. After the Pac-10 meet, Stanford will have 21 guaranteed spots. In addition, the Cardinal tallied 24 “B” times, which are not guaranteed berths, but do open up the possibility of an invite to Nationals. Stanford recorded at least a “B” time in each of the 18 swimming events and had “A” times in 14 of them. At least 10, and as many as 17, Cardinal swimmers will compete at the NCAA Championships.

Stanford took the lead with a win in the first event of the meet and never looked back.

“There was the excitement of having the whole team going together to get the conference championship,” senior captain Lacey Boutwell said. “Everyone was swimming well and we were really feeding off of each other.”

“We were all swimming well from the beginning and building on that through the meet,” freshman Caroline Bruce added.

Bruce, who received the “Swimmer of the Meet” award was the star of the weekend, bringing three individual Pac-10 titles back to the Farm. Including relays, Bruce finished the meet with five conference championships, four new personal bests and eight NCAA “A” times.

She easily won both the 200- and 400-yard individual medleys and cruised to the title in the 200-yard breaststroke. Her preliminary performance in the 200-yard individual medley is the third-fastest time in the nation. In the 400-yard IM, her winning time ranks fourth nationally and her win in the 200-yard breast is the year’s fastest non-converted time. In an exhibition swim in the 100-yard breaststroke, she recorded yet another personal best and swam to an “A” time.

“I haven’t had many personal bests through the season but the training I’ve been doing is better than ever before,” Bruce said. “And having such great coaches and a great team helped me to do that.”

She also swam the breaststroke leg on the two winning medley relay teams and was a member of the freestyle relay teams that came in second in the 400-yard and 800-yard races. Both medleys and the shorter freestyle relay teams finished in season-best time, and the 400-yard medley team posted the country’s third-fastest time.

Bruce was one of two Stanford swimmers to claim multiple individual titles. Boutwell won in the 50-yard and 100-yard freestyle, each in “A” time, and swam the anchor leg of the victorious 400-yard medley relay.

“It was an outstanding closing performance by a senior captain,” Quick said of Boutwell, who will leave Stanford with four individual and four relay conference championships.

Junior Dana Kirk wrapped up the meet with a final win for the Cardinal Saturday in the 200-yard butterfly in “A” time. A member of the two winning medley relays, Kirk now has eight Pac-10 championships in her career, two individual and six for relays.

Freshman Brooke Bishop finished with four “A” times and three “B” times, highlighted by two wins with the medley relay teams and second place finishes in two freestyle relays and the 50-yard freestyle race.

Junior Kristen Caverly tallied three “A” times, two of them second-place finishes to Bruce in the individual medleys and a third-place in the 200-yard breaststroke. Freshman Elizabeth Durot also posted three “A” times, in the 200-yard freestyle, 500-yard freestyle and the 800-yard freestyle relay.

Two more distance freestylers, sophomores Lauren Costella and Desiree Stahley, reached the “A” standard, finishing second and third, respectively.

The 200-yard medley relay team of senior Amy Wagner, Bruce, Kirk and Bishop and the 400-yard medley relay team of Bishop, Bruce, Kirk and Boutwell both recorded “A” times in their victories.

Senior Ashlee Rosenthal and sophomore Cassidy Krug finished second and third, respectively, in the one-meter diving competition. In the three-meter, Krug placed second and Rosenthal fourth. Junior Sara Bowling was right behind in fifth place. Bowling, a platform specialist, was Stanford’s top finisher in the 10-meter platform event in sixth place.

Stanford has now won two straight Pac-10 championships and 16 of 19 since the event began. Next on the agenda for the Cardinal divers will be the NCAA Zone E Meet in Oklahoma City in two weeks. The top eight finishers from that meet will join the swimmers in West Lafayette, Ind., on March 17 for the NCAA Championships.