Northridge Swimmers in 1st Place

Preliminary qualifying was only half over Friday morning but Pete Accardy, coach of the Cal State Northridge swimming and diving team, already was lamenting the results that the evening’s finals would bring.

“A couple of good races and we could have put it away,” he said sadly, referring to a women’s team championship. “Now we’re going to let them right back into the meet.”

“Them” was the best of the East in women’s swimming: Clarion, Pa., defending Division II national champion.

But as the day unfolded, Accardy’s fears never were realized.

Northridge held a 247-225.5 lead over Clarion at the end of Day 3 of the NCAA Division II championships, instead of being five to 15 points behind as Accardy earlier predicted.

The Lady Matadors received a big break when Clarion’s 400-yard relay team was disqualified during the prelims for a false start at the beginning of the breaststroke leg.

Clarion would have had the fourth-fastest qualifying time. Fourth place in the final would have been worth 22 points.

“Finally, something went our way,” Accardy said between sessions. “We had missed out getting into the consolation race or the finals by hundredths of a second so many times. I was beginning to think everything was going to go against us.”

By Friday night, he was in an even better mood.

“We’re in great shape,” he said. “We have good events all through the day tomorrow.” CSUN has defending champions going in the 200 backstroke (Stacy Mettam) and 200 breaststroke (Tina Schnare). Also, Jude Kylander is expected to score well in the 100 freestyle. She won the 50 freestyle Wednesday.

Kylander was fourth Friday in the 200 free, but her finish was important because the two Clarion swimmers in the race placed fifth and sixth. The winner was Laurence Bensimon of Florida Atlantic, who came from well off the pace to go 1:49.37 and set her third Division II record of the meet.

Kylander’s time of 1:52.94 was not only a personal best, but came just 15 minutes after she swam a strong leg on CSUN’s 200-yard free relay team that also finished fourth.

The Northridge men’s team failed to win for the second straight day, but the Matadors came up with three second-place finishes.

Ted Hollohan was second in the 200 free, Doug Larson was second in 1-meter diving, and CSUN completed its second-place hat trick in the 400 medley relay.

Hollohan, a freshman, swam a personal-best 1:41.19 in the prelims, then came back with a 1:39.46 effort in the finals to come within one 1/100th of a second of upsetting defending champion Bartt Frey of Cal State Bakersfield. A 3:24.66 clocking by CSUN in the medley relay couldn’t beat Bakersfield, either, but then few people have at this meet.

The Roadrunners lead second-place Oakland, Mich., 331-166. Northridge is third with 145, despite some good diving by Larson and Kevin Moller.

Larson, a freshman, scored 494.15 points and was second to Patrick Tully of Southern Connecticut, whose score of 553.80 set a Division II record. Moller was fifth at 438.20.