The top-ranked Stanford women’s swimming and diving team got off to a strong start on Wednesday in the first day of competition at the Pacific-10 Conference Championship in Long Beach, Calif. with a victory in the 200-yard medley relay.

EnlargeEnlarge
Cardinal swimmers dive into the pool at a meet earlier this month. The No. 1 women’s swimming and diving team is in second place after the first day of Pac-10 Championships in Long Beach, Calif. #gallery http://daily.stanford.edu/image/full/6898
Stanford Daily File Photo

Cardinal swimmers dive into the pool at a meet earlier this month. The No. 1 women’s swimming and diving team is in second place after the first day of Pac-10 Championships in Long Beach, Calif.

The Stanford team of sophomore Fiona O’Donnell-McCarthy, freshman Elaine Breeden, and juniors Caroline Bruce and Brooke Bishop took first with an NCAA “A” time of 1:37.71 — over a second faster than the team’s seed time of 1:39.07. Bishop’s freestyle time of 21.78 was also an “A” cut.

In the second event of the day, the 800-yard freestyle relay, Stanford’s team of freshmen Julia Smit and Whitney Spence, junior Elizabeth Durot and senior Desiree Stahley took third place behind California and Arizona. The Cardinal’s time of 7:06.59 was an “A” qualifying time and nearly 10 seconds faster than its seed time. Individually, Smit, Durot and Stahley all swam “A” times, and Spence’s swim reached the “B” mark.

After only two events on Wednesday, Stanford (10-0 in regular-season dual meets) holds second place to California (down by two points) but looks forward to a full day of competition today. The preliminaries of the 500 freestyle, 200 individual medley, 50 freestyle and 200 freestyle relay will begin at 11 a.m., with the finals of all four events at 6 p.m.