The Belmont Plaza pool in Long Beach, Calif. has a long and storied tradition of world-class swimmers, broken records and fast swimming. The evidence displayed on the wall of Olympic trials banners and yearly high school records reveals Belmont to be a place where the best swimmers compete. Although the facility itself is slightly outdated and anything but cutting edge, the pool’s traditions have long roots. One of them is the Stanford men’s swim team’s 25 consecutive Pacific-10 Conference titles.

No. 3 Stanford will seek to extend the streak to 26 beginning next Wednesday, Mar. 5 in Long Beach. Coming off a comfortable win over Cal over the weekend, the men’s team has tremendous confidence going into the meet. Stanford has a record of 7-1 with its only loss coming against Arizona and a 6-0 record in the Pac-10.

“There is always a certain pressure to keep the streak alive as the team does not want to be remembered as the team that broke it,” explained junior Jason Dunford. “However, that said, the ultimate goal is to peak at NCAAs. Those who need cuts [to compete at NCAAs] must be focused on getting them at Pac-10s so they can go to the bigger meet, [so] that we can have as strong a team as possible there.”

Stanford swimmers will be focused on the Pac-10 meet to swim for NCAA cuts. Only those who qualify for NCAA cuts may swim at the NCAA championships. Last year’s national high school swimmer of the year, freshman Austin Staab, has the team’s top time in the 50 free followed by Dunford. Jason is a member of the Kenyan national team and will be competing in the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Staab, Dunford, and senior Daniel Beal will lead the group in the 100 free while Beal, Dunford, sophomore Andrew Trepp, freshman David Mosko and senior captain Phillip Morrison provide depth in the 200 free. Beal, Mosko and Morrison will also hope to swim the 500 free at NCAAs. Distance aces Mosko, freshman Scotty Korotkin, and senior Noa Sakamoto will swim for cuts in the 1650 free. Sophomore Eugene Godsoe, freshman Josh Charnin-Aker and junior Scott Lathrope are the Cardinal’s main 100 and 200 backstrokers.

“Our biggest strength is our ability to come together as a team to win meets,” said Charnin-Aker. “I would argue that we do have some ‘big guns’ this year, but every single member of the team is intently focused on the team victories in the upcoming weeks.

“Although we don’t really have a weak event this year, next year’s class, including the nation’s top young breaststroker and distance freestyler, will add needed points across

the board.”

In particular, Stanford will be even stronger next year with top distance recruit Chad La Tourette, who opted to train at his native Mission Viejo club in preparation for Olympic Trials rather than enter the college season.

Curtis Lovelace of Nashville Aquatic Club will bolster the already strong Stanford breaststroke squad of junior captain Nate Cass, junior captain Paul Kornfeld, senior Egan Gans, freshman John Criste, senior Karl Boehringer, junior Chris Ash and junior Paul Zaich. This year, all seven breaststrokers have the potential to achieve NCAA cuts, and will attempt to do so at Pac-10s.

“We can only worry about what we can do as a team to get better and take care of our business in the pool and not worry about what the other teams are doing,” said Kornfeld. “If everyone on the team goes best times and achieves their goals we will put ourselves in excellent position to win NCAAs and that is all we can control.

“These next few weeks we will be making small adjustments and really beginning to swim fast setting ourselves up for the Pac-10 Championships and NCAAs.”

The men’s dive team will travel to Federal Way, Wash. for Pac-10s today while the swim team will leave next week. The NCAA championships will be held at the same site, Mar. 27-29.