Stockton, Calif. -- The BYU men's swim team opened up the 2002-03 swimming and diving season with a second place finish at the Pacific Invitational in Stockton, Calif., while the BYU women's team finished in third.
National-power Stanford took the Division I title with 1,085.50 points, but BYU followed suit with 605 points of their own, 162 points ahead of the host team University of the Pacific who finished third.
Men's head coach Tim Powers said, "The relays went head-to-head with Stanford and just got out touched. It was really good to get so close to a team that is ranked No. 2 or No. 1 in the country."
In his first meet as a Cougar, transfer student Diogo Yabe of Brazil, won the 100 fly with a time of 49.7, only .1 seconds off the BYU school record of 49.6 that was set back in 1983.
The women's team managed to gather 593 points, only 39 points behind second place team University of the Pacific. Cal State took the women's Division I title with 852 points and Washington State finished in fourth with 527.
"I thought we swam really well and improved on last week," said women's head coach Stan Crump.
Nichole Burrows won the 100 back with a time of 58.5, and the 400-free relay team also won its event with a time of 3:36
The Pacific Invitational also served as a dual meet between BYU and the University of the Pacific. In the head-to-head competition the Cougars defeated the Tigers to start the dual meet season 1-0 by a score of 181-94.