Nancy Sato's record-breaking performance in the one-meter dive was the brightest spot of last weekend's New England Intercollegiate Swimming Championships for the Radcliffe team, as they placed eleventh in a field of 23 at Brown.

The team missed the services of several key relay members including Sato, whose arm injury prevented her from competing in both relay events and the team total did not indicate several strong individual efforts, coach Alice McCabe said yesterday.

Tri-captain Sato set both a Brown and conference diving record as the plummeted her way to a 221.40 first-place finish for the five dives, and capped it off with a fourth place in the three-meter dive.

Sato's stellar performance was matched by freshman Laurie Downey, who tagged a time that qualifies her for the national championships in the 100-yard backstroke. Her time of 1:05.4 was good for only a fourth-place finish. Downey got a second fourth in the 200 individual Mcdley, in a time of 2:23, two seconds better than her first-place finish in the event at the IAB last week.

Another freshman, Carol Moore, shaved two seconds off her best time of the season, as she took sixth in the 100-yard breaststroke in a time of 1:16.66 Moore was another dual point-getter for Radcliffe, taking 11th in the 50-yard breaststroke.

Diana Borden capped off the freshman effort with two thirteenth-place finishes in the 100- and 50-yard breaststroke events.

Sato. Downey, Moore, and Borden will journey to Penn next week for the Easterns, the next step towards the National Championships, to be held at the University of Arizona in Tempe.