The 24th-ranked men's swimming and diving team entered the Eastern Seaboard Championships with a lineup of swimmers stacked from top to bottom with overpowering depth and balance.

But the opposition proved to be too much for Penn State, which placed third behind favorites Princeton and Harvard at the three-day championships, held Feb. 28-March 2.

For the fifth consecutive year the Tigers racked up enough points to capture the Eastern Championship at Princeton's DeNunzio Pool, scoring 645 total points, enough to easily push them past the 478.5-point performance of the third-place Lions. The Crimson finished second with 547.5 points.

"That first day we let a few things here and there get away from us and that allowed Princeton to get things going," Coach Peter Brown said. "I don't know if we really had enough quality depth anyway to get it done because Princeton and Harvard both had some real good performances come through for them."

While Penn State failed to capture first place, the Lions managed to swim their best meet of the year by far, hitting 52 lifetime-best swims, eight school records, and qualified two relay and six individual events for the NCAA Championships, March 28-30.

Despite this, it turned out to be depth, the element which has keyed Penn State's success all season, which eventually hurt the Lions most at the championships.

In the distance freestyle and butterfly events, Penn State lacked the depth and balance needed to score big at Easterns, but in the end it was the overpowering and dominating depth of both Princeton and Harvard which kept the Lions from capturing their first-ever Eastern Championship.

"(Princeton and Harvard's) upper quality was overpowering -- where we might have one (swimmer) they had two or three," Brown said. "There were some events where we did the same thing, but they did it more than we did.

"Our depth didn't show through as much as I thought it would or as much as I think it's capable of."

James Sloat, who qualified for NCAAs in the 200-yard breaststroke at the Princeton Invitational in early December, set a school record and qualified for NCAAs in the 100 breaststroke with a time of 56.52. Nick Boyce, swimming in the first leg of the 400 medley relay was also able to hit a school record and qualify for NCAAs in the 100 backstroke.

Penn State also recorded school records in the 200 and 400 medley relay and the 800 freestyle relay. Of these, the 400 medley relay team of Nick Boyce, Sloat, Thad Davis and Adam Carroll hit an NCAA qualifying time with a finish of 3:18.67, finishing third behind Princeton and Harvard.

The Lions were also able to qualify their 400 freestyle relay team of Carroll, Davis, Boyce and Walt Sopp for NCAAs with a pool-record time of 2:59.06 in the last event of the meet.

Sopp also captured his first individual championship in Eastern competition, winning two events, the 50 and 100 freestyle. His time of 44.26 in the 100 was fast enough to set a meet record, school record and also qualify him for NCAAs. Because of that qualification Sopp will also swim in both the 50 and 200 freestyle at the NCAAs.

"We didn't have the best meet possible, but we had a good meet, with a lot of guys hitting great times," Sopp said. "Princeton and Harvard both put out solid teams and Princeton got most of the breaks -- we just didn't race them enough."

The diving team, which suffered through a lackluster performance, was met by much the same competition as the swimmers but still managed to score well.

On the 1-meter board, Lyle Suess of Princeton narrowly edged senior diver Steve Zamborsky, who scored the second highest point total among the divers, 504.30-495.05. Jeff Eagles struggled on the board but was able to place 11th.

On the 3-meter board, Zamborsky placed third behind last year's champion, John Sharkey. Eagles placed fifth on 3-meter, while freshman Chris Devine placed ninth.

"The meet was disappointing for the most part -- the guys went after it well, but just didn't execute the way they could have," diving coach Craig Brown said. "We worked on the glitches before the meet, but those little things came back and bit 'em real good."

Although disappointed with the performance, Brown said the divers will use it to work out their errors before the NCAA pre-qualification meet to be held this weekend.

The six swimmers headed to NCAAs now begin preparation for the NCAA Championships in Texas. Peter Brown said he doesn't think the loss will hurt the Lions as they prepare.

"It's disappointing not to win, but the good far outweighed any not-so-good things," Brown said. "Getting events qualified was the important thing because I felt like whatever we did at Easterns we could do better at NCAAs. And if we do better at NCAAs, then we'll be able to do some things nationally."