March 23, 2005

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Palo Alto Online

Bruce continues a tradition

by Rick Eymer

Stanford freshman Caroline Bruce has entered the school's record books and established herself as one of the greats in Cardinal women's swimming with an impressive showing at the NCAA Championships over the weekend at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana.

Bruce not only swept the 100- and 200-yard breaststrokes in personal bests, but her third-place finish in the 200 IM was also accomplished in a personal-best time. She compiled six All-American honors while scoring 56 points, second most among individual swimmers.

Auburn's Kirsty Coventry was named the NCAA Swimmer of the Meet after earning Individual High Point honors by scoring the maximum 60 points.

Bruce merely stepped in where fellow Olympian and former Stanford star Tara Kirk left off.

Kirk won the previous four 100 breast national titles, and the last three 200 breast titles.

"Tara Kirk was an amazing collegiate swimmer," Bruce said. "Taking after her by winning my first one and following in her footsteps is quite an honor."

And doing so with impressive performances added to her accomplishments. She swam the 200 breast in 2:08.67, the fifth-best mark in the event. Her 59.55 effort in the 100 breast was the third-fastest time ever, and is just off Kirk's school mark of 58.41, which was achieved during Kirk's junior year.

"It was a great experience and really exciting to sweep both of the breaststroke events in my freshman year," said Bruce, who was within 1.54 seconds of the 200 breast American mark of 2:07.13 set by Kirk at last year's Pac-10 championships.

She also swam the 200 IM in 1:57.66 and picked up All-American honors in three relays - the 400 free, 200 medley and 400 medley.

Bruce and other members of the swim team will compete at the World Championship trials beginning April 1 in Indianapolis.

Stanford finished fifth with 313 points, its 23rd consecutive top six finish at the national meet. Georgia won its fourth team title with 609 1/2 points to beat defending champion Auburn (492).

Arizona (440 points) and Florida (355) also finished ahead of Stanford.

"I thought our team swam really well throughout the entire meet," Stanford coach Richard Quick said. "We would have liked to have finished higher but given everything it was probably about the best we could do."

Lacey Boutwell, who announced her retirement from competitive swimming after the meet, was sixth in the 100 free in 48.96. She swam a personal-best 48.75 in Saturday's prelims that improved the time on her ranking as Stanford's fourth-best all-time performer in the event.

Boutwell has reached the finals of the 100 free in each of her four years at Stanford.

"It was great to finish this way," Boutwell said. "There's not a moment I regret. My time at Stanford with coach Quick and all of the girls in our program has been wonderful. I've been swimming since I was five years old, so obviously it is a bit sad as well."

Boutwell completed her career with 19 All-American honors - five this year -- to rank ninth on Stanford's all-time list. She also won a pair of NCAA titles on Stanford's winning 200 and 400 medley relay teams as a freshman in 2002, as well as nine career Pac-10 crowns and a total of 61 collegiate races overall.

"Lacey Boutwell is the kind of person you can build a team around, because she will do anything to have the team be successful," Quick said. "She has been a great competitor and great leader for four years. She's been fantastic and Stanford is going to miss her a lot."

Dana Kirk was fifth in the 200 fly (1:56.17) while competing in the championship finals of the event for the second straight year. She was also fifth in the 100 fly while competing as a championship finalist in the event for the third straight season.

Lauren Costella had an impressive performance in the 1,650 free with a personal-best 16:05.94, good for sixth, and fifth on Stanford's all-time list. Costella's season-best time of 4:21.80 in the 400 IM prelims earned her 30th-place, which was 13 spots better than her No. 43 seeding.

Olympian Kristen Caverly also had an outstanding showing. Bothered by back problems for the past two years, she still managed to swim a personal best 2:11.13 (by almost two seconds) in the 200 breast. She's fourth on Stanford's all-time list.

Elizabeth Durot (10th, 16:15.32) and Desiree Stahley (14th, personal-best 16:19.56) also earned All-American honors in the 1,650 free, while Morgan Hentzen (16:27.97) finished 22nd in the event.

Laura Davis scored for the Cardinal with a 13th-place finish in the 100 fly in a time of 1:56.17.

Freshman Brooke Bishop established a personal best when she led off the Cardinal 400 free relay with a split of 49.70.

Stanford recorded a season-best 1:39.38 to finish fourth in the 200 medley relay with a team of Amy Wagner, Bruce, Kirk and Bishop.

Gunn High grad Ashlee Rosenthal finished eighth in the 3-meter diving competition with 476.30 points in the finals to earn her fifth career All-American honor. Rosenthal earned All-American status at least once in each of her four collegiate campaigns. Cassidy Krug also scored in the event with a 13th-place finish (470.55) during prelim action Friday afternoon to earn her second All-American honor in as many days and the third of her career.

Stanford's 800 free relay team of Durot, Boutwell, Desiree Stahley and Hentzen finished ninth with a time of 7:14.38.

Caverly (10th, 4:13.81) and Davis (13th, 4:15.76) scored for the Cardinal in the consolation finals of the 400 IM, with Davis registering a personal-best time.

Stanford's 400 medley relay team turned in a season-best time of 3:34.82 with Bishop's personal-best leadoff leg of 54.35 making her the No. 9 all-time performer at Stanford.

"I was very proud of our 400 medley relay team," Quick said. "They made a run at winning at it and didn't quite get there, but they did very well."

Stanford finished sixth in the 200 free relay when a team of Bishop, Boutwell, Sarah Jones and Stahley swam a season-best time of 1:30.87.

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