Pacific 10 Men’s Swimming : Mortenson Wins Third Event; Stanford Increases Lead

The Stanford tidal wave through the 1987 Pacific 10 swimming and diving championships continued Friday night as the Cardinal increased its lead over second-place California by 102 points.

Stanford, the top-ranked team in the nation, completed the second night of swimming at the Cerritos Olympic Swim Center with a total of 516 points. Cal was second with 387, followed by Arizona State (273), USC (264), UCLA (263), Arizona (173) and Washington (82).

Jay Mortenson, the Stanford sophomore who won two events Thursday night, led a Cardinal sweep in the 100-yard backstroke, the final individual event. This ruined any chance Cal had of overtaking the five-time defending champions.

Mortenson, who earlier won the 100-yard butterfly in 47.84 (denying Stanford’s Pablo Morales his fourth straight title), swam the backstroke in 49.09.

Sean Murphy (the 1986 Pac-10 champion) and Kurt Kroesche finished behind Mortenson.

Jeff Prior of Cal set a Pac-10 record in the 400-yard individual medley. After finishing second in the 200-IM Thursday, Prior swam a 3:49.10, making him the only swimmer to go under 3:50 in a conference meet.

Cal won its sixth straight 800-yard freestyle relay. Prior, Craig Popp, T.A. DeBiase and Matt Biondi swam a 6:31.36 to hold off Stanford. UCLA finished third.

Other winners were UCLA’s Brian Jones in the 200-yard freestyle (1:37.30) and Peter Boden of ASU in the 100-breaststroke (54.86).

Tonight’s final six events will determine only individual titles. The team title was clinched by Stanford after the first night of competition.

The Cardinal once again will be favored in the NCAA championships, which begin April 3 at Austin, Tex. Stanford has won the past two titles.