Northridge Swimmers Try to Beat Winter Clock in Division Qualifying

At first glance, this weekend’s Cal State Northridge invitational doesn’t appear to be more important than any other swim meet held in December.

It is, after all, tough to consider it swim season when half the college pools in the country have either been drained or have become practice sites for the ice hockey team. But at Northridge, the date of the invitational has been an important one since Pete Accardy became coach in 1970.

It is in the chill of these December mornings and evenings that members of the Northridge swim teams--both of which are among the best in the NCAA Division II--train to accomplish a time fast enough to qualify for the national championships in March.

The swimmers don’t have to qualify this early. They can qualify by meeting predetermined standard times at any scheduled meet before the nationals. Accardy simply prefers to get it over with early so his swimmers can concentrate on training and not have to worry about anything else.

Northridge swimmers have been tapering their workouts and will shave tonight in preparation for the invitational that begins Saturday at East Los Angeles College.

Tapering and shaving are common practices used to maximize a swimmer’s performance for a short period of time. After working hard for several months, the swimmers have had easier workouts lately in preparation for the meet. By shaving their arms, legs and sometimes heads, swimmers feel that they reduce water resistance.

The other participants--Cal State Los Angeles, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and Cal State Bakersfield--won’t take the meet so seriously.

Bakersfield’s men’s team won the national championship last season by using the training method most popular among college teams. Coach Ernie Maglischo didn’t have his swimmers taper and shave until the California Collegiate Athletic Assn. meet, two weeks before the nationals.

By waiting until the end of the season to qualify, the swimmers take a gamble, however. If they do not meet the qualifying standard at the conference meet they don’t have another chance.

It is also difficult for those who do qualify to remain at peak condition for a period of two weeks.

“Most of them do not improve their times, but they stay about where they are for the conference meet,” Maglischo said. “The conference meet is important to most teams.”

But Northridge is not one of them.

Last season, Accardy watched the Bakersfield men win 15 of 16 events at the conference meet. His reaction: Yawn.

Unshaven Northridge swimmers worked out before and after their races.

“It’s difficult to watch a team bury you like that, but I don’t think it affected us,” Accardy said. “We knew it was going to happen. We show up in body but not in mind.”

By having his swimmers train through the conference meet, Accardy believes they will be at peak form after they taper and shave for the nationals. His method also has a few drawbacks, however.

Since many of Northridge’s swimmers choose not to train during the summer months, they have only three months to shape up for qualifying.

“The standards are fast and they’re not easy to reach,” Accardy said, “but it has worked for us. If you can get qualifying out of the way and are able to concentrate on training, it’s a big advantage.”

Another drawback to qualifying this week is the timing of semester finals.

“I tried to study at the meet last year, but it didn’t turn out too well,” sophomore Tina Schnare said. “If you don’t have your mind completely on the meet, you die.”

Still, Schnare prefers Accardy’s method to that of Bakersfield’s. “I wouldn’t like not having another chance if I messed up,” she said.

Schnare, who set Division II records in winning the 100- and 200-meter breaststroke at the nationals in Orlando, Fla., last season, will try to qualify for the Division I and Division II meets. Division II swimmers can compete at the higher level if their times are fast enough.

Stacy Mettam, who won the 100- and 200-meter backstroke last season, will also try to meet Division I standards, as will Jeff Kubiak, who was voted the most outstanding swimmer at last season’s Division II competition.

Accardy is hopeful that as many as 12 men and nine women from Northridge will qualify for the Division II meet at the invitational this weekend.

The Northridge men’s team had won five straight national championships before Bakersfield broke the streak last season. Accardy said the loss stemmed from Northridge’s lack of depth, not its unique training method.

“We just don’t have the numbers they do--financially or in the number of swimmers,” Accardy said.

Last season, Bakersfield sent the NCAA maximum of 18 swimmers to the nationals. Northridge’s men’s team had 11 swimmers and four divers. Each diver counts as a half because they are eligible in only two events as opposed to four for swimmers.

Kubiak is the top swimmer back from last season’s team. He won the 200-meter breaststroke and the 200- and 400-meter individual medleys at Orlando. Also back are John Carpadikis, who was second in the 1,650 free and third in the 500 free; John Hallman, a finalist in the 100 and 200 breaststroke; Scott Warren, a finalist in the 500 and 1,650 free; Sherman Poole, a finalist in the 100 butterfly, and Kevin Moller, a finalist in diving.

Top newcomers are Ted Hollahan, a freshman sprinter from Colorado; Sean Parker, a sophomore backstroker from Florida; John Morrison, a freshman middle-distance freestyler from Thousand Oaks; Mike Baele, a transfer from Tulane who was a former Southern Section champion at Glendale High; Luigi DeMari, a junior redshirt, and Doug Larson, a freshman diver from Northern California.

Schnare and Mettam, both sophomores, lead a women’s team that Accardy considers much stronger than the one that finished third in the nationals last season. Sandy Barnes, a finalist in the 100 butterfly and member of national record-setting 200 and 400 medley relay teams, also returns, as does sprinter Jude Kylander and breaststroker Heather Laurie.

Xiaoxia Chen (teammates call her Chow-Chow) is the team’s top newcomer. She was fourth in platform diving at the 1984 Olympics for China. Chiye Onodera, a junior transfer from Cal State Long Beach, and Tammy Fukushima, a senior redshirt, complete a solid team of divers.

Contributions are also expected from Lisa Dial, a freshman from Santa Clara; Sharon Elm, a junior transfer from Ohlone College; Nikki Fukushima, a freshman from San Francisco; and Sheryl Maniss, a freshman from San Diego.