A season that started with Penn State's women's swimming and diving team being crushed by defending national champion Auburn ended this weekend in much the same way. Only this time, the Lions have some company.

Saturday afternoon, the Tigers put the finishing touches on their third straight NCAA championship at Student Rec Center Natatorium on the campus of Texas A&M, trouncing the rest of the 69-team field by 138 points. Auburn's 569 points were the most points captured in an NCAA championship meet since Stanford tallied 649.5 in 1993.

Penn State finished in 15th place with 101 points, the Nittany Lions' highest point total in a NCAA championship.

Penn State went into the meet highly optimistic, but on a weekend that saw two world records, nine United States records, and 16 NCAA records broken, the Lions were never a major factor in the title chase.

The meet started with a bang on Thursday night, with Georgia's 200-meter freestyle relay team breaking the world record in the first event of the championships.

"This is my 25th year at Georgia and I can honestly say that the 200-free relay that we swam tonight was technically the most well-done relay we've ever swum," Georgia swimming and diving coach Jack Baeurle said in a press release.

Georgia finished second in the competition with 431 points.

Penn State also scored its first points of the championship Thursday night when freshman Margy Keefe took 15th in the 400-freestyle.

The Nittany Lions closed the evening by taking fourth in the 400-medley relay, one of Penn State's strongest events all year. The team of Sarah Haupt, Kristen Woodring, Amberle Biederman, and Dee Dlugonski swam an excellent race, but were seconds behind by the team from Georgia, which set a new NCAA record in the event.

In fact, it was that kind of weekend for Penn State, which swam well in event after event only to be topped by a team with another record-setting performance.

The medley relay team also placed fifth in the 200-medley, and the four members of the team accounted for a vast majority of Penn States scoring on the weekend. Haupt placed third in the 100-backstroke with a time of 59.45 seconds, and Woodring was seventh in the 100-breaststroke with a time of 1:07.62.

The rest of the Lions scoring came from Keefe and the other members of the 800-freestyle relay team, which placed 13th in the event.

In a strong individual showing, Keefe, a freshman competing in her first NCAA championship meet, finished 12th in the 1,500-meter freestyle event with a time of 16:10.59. The event gave her a third honorable-mention All-America selection to go with honors in the 400-freestyle and the 800-freestyle relay.

Penn State was hurt by a poor showing from its divers, who failed to secure a point despite having three representatives in the competition.