The first night of the women’s Pac-12 championships in Federal Way, Wash., featured two dramatic relay victories for the Stanford Cardinal, one in come-from-behind fashion and the other in record-setting fashion.<\/p>\n
Stanford edged out Cal to win the first event of the meet, the 200 medley relay, in dramatic fashion as\u00a0Simone Manuel<\/strong> overtook\u00a0Farida Osman<\/strong> on the anchor leg to touch the wall a tenth of a second ahead.<\/p>\n Ally Howe\u00a0<\/strong>(23.63),\u00a0Kim Williams\u00a0<\/strong>(27.25),\u00a0Janet Hu<\/strong> (22.66) and\u00a0Manuel (20.78) came in at 1:34.32, while Cal’s\u00a0Amy Bilquist\u00a0<\/strong>(23.81),\u00a0Abbey Weitzeil<\/strong> (27.00),\u00a0Noemie Thomas\u00a0<\/strong>(22.52) and Osman (21.09) finished in 1:34.42.<\/p>\n Manuel’s ridiculous split is the fastest in history, two one-hundredths better than\u00a0Arianna Vanderpool-Wallace’s\u00a0<\/strong>20.80 from 2012.<\/p>\n Both squads just missed the American and NCAA record of 1:34.15 set by Stanford’s team of Howe,\u00a0Sarah Haase<\/strong>, Hu and\u00a0Lia Neal\u00a0<\/strong>in 2006, and the swims rank as the top two in the country this season.<\/p>\n USC finished third with\u00a0Hannah Leach<\/strong>,\u00a0Riley Scott<\/strong>,\u00a0Louise Hansson<\/strong> and\u00a0Anika Apostalon<\/strong> finishing in 1:35.18, and Arizona took fourth in 1:35.47. Competing for the Wildcats were\u00a0Taylor Garcia<\/strong>,\u00a0Kennedy Lohman<\/strong>,\u00a0Annie Ochitwa<\/strong> and\u00a0Katrinka Konopka<\/strong>, the same foursome that previously held the top time in the country at 1:34.63.<\/p>\n Rounding out the top eight were UCLA (1:36.92), Arizona State (1:37.67), Utah (1:38.95) and Washington State (1:39.65).<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Cal’s B-team posted a strong time of 1:35.99, and that included an impressive 23.57 backstroke split from\u00a0Kathleen Baker<\/strong>, the fastest split of the night.<\/p>\n Later on, Stanford won a second relay with a dominant swim in the 800 free relay, and it came in American and NCAA record-time.\u00a0The foursome of\u00a0Lia Neal<\/strong> (1:43.34),\u00a0Katie Drabot\u00a0<\/strong>(1:43.43),\u00a0Ella Eastin\u00a0<\/strong>(1:42.37) and\u00a0Katie Ledecky\u00a0<\/strong>(1:40.28) finished in 6:49.42, taking down the previous mark of 6:50.18 set by Cal at the same meet two years ago.<\/p>\n Notably, the Cardinal pulled off this record-breaking swim without Manuel on the relay.\u00a0Swimmers can swim a maximum of three individual events and four relays or two individual events and five relays at a championship meet, so Stanford coach\u00a0Greg Meehan\u00a0<\/strong>apparently decided that this would be the relay he held Manuel out of. The strategy obviously paid off in a big way.<\/p>\n Cal finished second in 6:53.37 with a team of\u00a0Kathleen Baker\u00a0<\/strong>(1:43.17),\u00a0Katie McLaughlin<\/strong> (1:42.82),\u00a0Abbey Weitzeil\u00a0<\/strong>(1:43.84) and\u00a0Amy Bilquist\u00a0<\/strong>(1:43.54), and USC’s\u00a0Louise Hansson\u00a0<\/strong>(1:42.10),\u00a0Tatum Wade\u00a0<\/strong>(1:43.36),\u00a0Kirsten Vose\u00a0<\/strong>(1:43.42) and\u00a0Anika Apostalon<\/strong> (1:45.36) finished third in 6:54.24.<\/p>\n The next five teams to finish were UCLA (7:04.84), Arizona (7:05.30), Arizona State (7:07.06), Washington State (7:14.51) and Utah (7:15.51).<\/p>\n