LONG BEACH, Calif. - The second-ranked Stanford Cardinal came out fast and captured the lead after the first day of competition at the 2001 Men's Pac-10 Swimming and Diving Championship with 249 points. In second place is No. 8 Southern California with 194 points, followed by No. 5 California in third place with 146.5 points. No. 7 Arizona (111 points), No. 13 Arizona State (76.5 point) and No. 25 Washington (68 points) have the four, five and six spots, respectively. Not included in the point totals are the men's one meter, three meter and platform diving events.

In the finals of the 50 free, Olympic gold-medalist Anthony Ervin of California, broke the Pac-10 record touching the wall in a time of 19.11. The Golden Bears' 200 free relay team, made up of sophomore Ervin, junior Matt Macedo, senior Scott Greenwood and sophomore Frank Uxa placed second with an NCAA qualifying time of 1:17.77. Placing first in the 200 free relay was Stanford (sophomore Randall Bal, senior Anthony Robinson, freshman Bobby O'Bryan and junior Jeff Guyman) with a time of 1:17.63.

In the championship final of the 200 individual medley, Cardinal freshman Marqus Rogan, swam to an NCAA qualifying time of 1:45.92. Also qualifying for the NCAAs was USC junior Tamas Kerekjarto (1:46.12), Stanford senior Steven Brown (1:47.11) and Stanford senior Rob Canales (1:47.13).

In the 400 medley relay, both Stanford and California made NCAA qualifying times. Stanford placed first in the event with a time of 3:11.65, the team was made up of freshman Peter Marshall, Robinson, sophomore Dan Westcott and senior Adam Messner. The Golden Bear team (3:12.44) was made up of freshman Alex Lim, sophomore Daniel Kim, freshman Karel Novy and Ervin.

In the 500 free Southern California's freshman Klete Keller placed first with an NCAA qualifying time of 4:16.65. Placing second was last year's Pac-10 Champion, Erik Vendt of USC, with a time of 4:18.27, also an NCAA qualifying time. Messner from Stanford also qualified with a time of 4:19.72.

Day two of the 2001 Men's Pac-10 Swimming Championship will be March 2nd, beginning with preliminaries at 11 a.m. PST followed by the finals at 6 p.m. PST. The third and final day of the Pac-10 Championship meet will follow the same schedule.