NCAA Swimming : Stanford’s Morales Sets Mark

Stanford junior Pablo Morales lowered his U.S. Open, American and NCAA records in the preliminaries of the 100-yard butterfly at the 63rd NCAA men’s Division I swimming and diving meet Friday and then won the event for the third consecutive year.

Morales, who won Olympic silver medals in the 100-meter butterfly and the 200-meter individual medley, set a record of 46.26 seconds in his morning preliminary at Indiana University. He had set the old records of 46.52 in winning the event last year.

Morales was a little slower in the final, winning in 46.37.

Defending champion Stanford, which led by four points after Thursday’s opening session, heads into today’s final session of competition with 255 points. California is second with 223, and Florida, seeking its third title in four years, was next with 199.

Junior Matt Biondi of California, who successfully defended his title in the 200 freestyle in 1:33.85, finished more than one second ahead of runner-up Richard Oppel of UCLA.

Italian Giovanni Minervini of UCLA also came up with a surprise in the 100 breaststroke, edging defending two-time champion John Moffet of Stanford. The Bruin sophomore was timed in 53.75.

Senior Tom Jager of UCLA, the Olympic gold medalist in the 400 freestyle and 400 medley relay, was the defending champion in the backstroke and held the American record of 48.21, but he missed making the championship final by nine-hundredths of a second and then placed second in the consolation race.