Pacific 10 Men’s Swimming : Stanford Has Lead, as Usual; Biondi, Kostoff, Nance Win

The first night of the Pacific 10 men’s swimming and diving championships produced two new champions Thursday, two repeat champions and the same leader it has for five years running--Stanford.

The Cardinal, which has also won the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. title two straight years, came into the meet at the Cerritos Olympic Swim Center as the No. 1 team in the nation. No other Pac-10 school was given a chance to win this meet, which runs through Saturday, and apparently, none will.

After four swimming and two diving events (held last weekend at the University of Arizona), the Cardinal has 237 points. California is second with 210 points, followed by UCLA (157), USC (135), Arizona State (129), Arizona (75) and Washington (26).

Retaining their Pac-10 titles were Cal’s Matt Biondi, the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. and American record-holder in the 50-yard freestyle, and Stanford’s 400-yard medley relay team.

Biondi, a senior, beat Stanford’s Doug Lillydahl with a time of 20.26, good enough to qualify him for the NCAA championship in April.

Stanford’s relay team (Jay Mortensen, Sam Schwartz, Pablo Morales and Byron Burson) fell short of the Cardinal’s NCAA record of 3:10.92 but still held off Arizona State with a 3:16.19 showing.

The other winners at the meet were two Stanford swimmers. Jeff Kostoff took the 500-yard freestyle (4:20.51) after finishing second last year, and Matt Nance swam a 1:48.22 to edge Cal’s Jeff Prior in the 200-yard individual medley.

The 200 medley provided the only surprise of the evening. Pablo Morales of Stanford and Neil Cochran of Arizona State failed to make the championship final. Cochran was the defending Pac-10 champion and Morales won the event at the NCAA meet last year.

Both, however, produced times good enough to qualify for this year’s NCAA meet.

The Pac-10 meet continues tonight with the 400-yard individual medley and the 100-butterfly.