Sometimes lifetime-bests aren't quite good enough when stacked up against national competition.

The men's swimming and diving team found that out this weekend at the NCAA Championships, hitting three school records, but managing to score just one point.

Senior diver Jeff Eagles put together his second solid list in as many performances and placed 16th on the 3-meter board for one point, earning him Honorable Mention All-America honors at the 68th annual Men's NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships this weekend in the Texas Swim Center at the University of Texas in Austin.

Diving coach Craig Brown said both Eagles and Steve Zamborsky performed exceptionally well at the national meet in their first trip.

"Steve looked like a champ and really shocked some people and Jeff went in there pretty confident and just overwhelmed," Brown said. "Looking back I'm really tickled for them -- they did as good as they could have in their first shot.

"They both wowed some people and it was a major step forward for our program because a lot of people really took notice."

Eagles scored 460.85 points in his 11-dive repertoire to finish 16th on the 3-meter board, while Zamborsky placed 21st in the field of 32 on the 1-meter with a score of 430.90.

The five Lion swimmers, Walt Sopp, Nick Boyce, James Sloat, Adam Carroll and Thad Davis, put several lifetime-bests on the board, but couldn't manage to finish top 16 in their events.

Coach Peter Brown said although several aspects of the meet were disappointing, there were satisfying results.

"I thought we made a good, solid showing, but unfortunately, this year's meet was so much faster than normal that we would have needed lifetime-bests across the board to score," Brown said. "It's disappointing and frustrating not to score, but if you look at the other things, we did pretty well."

For the fourth consecutive year, Texas walked away with the national championship with 476 total points. Stanford finished second with 420, while Florida scored 313 points for third.

Sopp, a senior who entered the championships as one of the top-ranked freestylers in the nation, was unable to put personal-best times on the board in the 50-, 100-, and 200-yard freestyle events.

Sopp's time of 20.69 in the 50 freestyle placed him 44th out of 47, while his time of 1:39.59 in the 200 left him 24th. In the 100 freestyle, Sopp's strongest event, he finished in 44.94, but failed to advance to the finals.

"I was very frustrated with swimming at the meet -- I just didn't finish my races," Sopp said. "As a team, we certainly weren't out-classed, but we didn't put together a complete meet."

Penn State improved on its showing last year with lifetime-best and school records from backstroker Nick Boyce and breaststroke-specialist James Sloat.

Boyce hit personal-best and school-record times in both the 100 and 200 backstroke events. His time of 50.13 in the 100 was good enough for 25th and his 1:48.77 in the 200 was two seconds faster than his previous best. In the 200 breaststroke, Sloat's time of 2:01.08 was good enough for 23rd, a time which Brown said was fast enough to be top 20 last year. Sloat finished the 100 breaststroke in 56.53.

The relay teams, the Lions' strength all year, faltered a bit at the championships. The 400 freestyle relay team of Adam Carroll, Boyce, Sopp and Thad Davis finished a strong 18th in 2:59.43, missing the cut by just .19 seconds, but the 400 medley relay was disqualified after judges said Sopp jumped too early on his leg of the race.

"The results point-wise aren't there but I felt like we were prepared," Brown said. "Unless you have real experience you need to be at your best or you can forget it -- we were just a little short.

"I felt like everything was very good -- I really do," Brown said. "If I had to change anything I wouldn't because we were right in there the entire meet."