Psych Meets Might at CCAA Swimming Finals

On the second day of the California Collegiate Athletic Assn. swimming championships Thursday at Cal State Bakersfield, the Cal State Bakersfield men’s team continued to widen its lead over Cal State Northridge.

But CSUN Coach Pete Accardy, whose teams have won five straight NCAA Division II championships and nine of the last 11, couldn’t care less.

“We’re getting our butts kicked,” Accardy said, “but we figured we would.”

Accardy figured as much because CSUN puts so little emphasis on this four-day meet. To Accardy and the Matadors, all that matters is the national meet March 12-15 in Orlando, Fla.

Bakersfield uses the conference meet as a qualifier for the nationals, pulling out all the stops in an effort to do well. That includes shaving and tapering its workouts.

CSUN swimmers, who shave their body hair in December in an all-out assault on the qualifying standards, then devote three months to training for the nationals, treat the CCAA championships as just another workout on the road to Orlando.

“We’re working out between the heats and finals,” Accardy said. “This is no different to us than any dual meet.”

It’s a difference in philosophy that is not lost on Accardy or Bakersfield Coach Ernie Maglischo.

Or the CCAA scorekeeper.

On a day when the CSUN women also increased their lead over Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Bakersfield men set conference and pool records in all four events that were contested Thursday.

The Roadrunners lifted their point total to 409, ahead of CSUN’s 322. The CSUN women have 473, while San Luis Obispo women have 310.

“Our kids are just not ready to swim here,” Accardy said. “But you have to keep things in perspective. Last year, we got blown out here and went back and won the nationals.”

Accardy’s teams have trained the same way in his previous 16 seasons at Northridge, with obvious success. But Maglischo has been successful, too. His teams won three national titles at Chico State in the 1970s, and another at Oakland (Mich.) College in 1980.

Said Maglischo, who started the Bakersfield program last year: “At one time, we believed that you could only taper once and peak and that was it. And after that, you weren’t going to do as well. But we’ve seen people go to the Olympic trials and then go to the Olympic Games and better their times.

“And we’ve seen a lot of Division I teams, because the standards were so tough, have to taper at their conference meets and then go to the national meet and do very well.

“We tried that last year and it worked beautifully for us. We swam well in our conference meet and made our standards and then went back to the nationals and improved on them. I was very pleased with those results.”

And so, of course, was Accardy, who carted home another championship trophy.

While CSUN gets up emotionally for only one season-ending meet, Bakersfield must maintain an emotional peak for about three weeks. Maglischo said that about 99% of his swimmers shaved this week.

CSUN will shave in Orlando. (Shaving body hair gives swimmers a feeling of weightlessness in the water and makes a “giant, drastic difference” in performance, Accardy said.)

“I think it’s a big advantage to go into a championship meet without having shaved in the recent past,” Accardy said.

It’s difficult, Accardy said, to hold that kind of a peak.

But, he added, “like athletes in any sport, if they’re emotionally and mentally tough, they might be able to do it.”

Notes

Eleven CSUN swimmers and two divers have qualified for the NCAA Division II championships March 12-15 in Orlando, Fla. Three Bakersfield swimmers had qualified before this week, and eight more met the standards in the first two days of the CCAA championships. . . . Bakersfield has no divers. . . . Sophomore Krissy Walden became the sixth national qualifier for the CSUN women when she won the 200-yard butterfly Thursday in 2:09.69, just .02 below the standard. . . . CSUN freshmen Tina Schnare and Stacy Mettam won the 100-yard breaststroke and the 100-yard backstroke, Schnare setting a conference record in the 100 breast. Both had qualified earlier for the nationals. . . . CSUN’s team of Katie McCarthy, Jenny Wiggins, Tracy Sweetland and Krissy Walden won the 800 free relay as the Lady Matadors swept Thursday’s four events. . . . Blair Nogosek and Roland King finished one-two in men’s one-meter diving. The CSUN duo was 1-2 at the nationals on the one- and three-meter boards last year, King winning both events. . . . CSUN’s Marion Gelhaus was the winner in the women’s three-meter diving, outscoring her only competitor, teammate Harmony Lawrence.