Swimming : No. 1 USC Tops Stanford, Faces No. 3 Cal Today

The USC swim team, ranked No. 1 in the country since the end of November, got a key victory Friday, beating defending National Collegiate Athletic Assn. champion Stanford, 58-55, at USC, and today faces another big test, taking on California.

“If we get by (this weekend), then we have the Bruins in two weeks, and they are an improving club,” USC Coach Peter Daland said before the Stanford meet. “They (the Bruins) are just getting better all the time. They beat ASU by about the same score we beat ASU by. Their score against Arizona was not different from ours.

“We’ve already had the diving competition, and UCLA is leading the meet, 14-4. So that will be a very big challenge, too.”

Daland is not exaggerating the strength of so many conference teams. In swimming, the Pacific 10 Conference is the class of the nation. In the latest rankings, USC is No. 1; Florida No. 2; Cal No. 3; Stanford and Michigan tied for No. 4; Arizona State No. 6, and UCLA No. 7.

UCLA was beaten by Cal, 58-55, Friday and meets Stanford today.

Prime Ticket will show taped coverage of the USC-Stanford meet today at 5 p.m. and will air taped coverage of UCLA-Stanford Sunday at 7:30 p.m.

The Pac-10 championships, which have been moved to the Belmont Plaza pool in Long Beach March 9-11, will be interesting, too, even though a number of the swimmers have already made qualifying times for the NCAA meet.

Daland says that USC, despite its No. 1 ranking, really has not shown its strength this season. “We’ve kind of scraped by,” he said. “At every major meet, we’ve had a major swimmer or two out. . . . We’ve had close meets. In Calgary (two weeks ago), it went down to the last leg of the last relay, only saved by a great takeoff by Dan Jorgensen. . . . It’s hard to make a bid to be No. 1 in the states if you can’t win in Canada.”

It would seem that USC could make a strong run at the national title when Daland finally gets his whole team together, but he stresses the “if” when he corrects: “If I get them together. Every time I think we’re going to get together there’s a new illness or new injury.”

Steve Bentley, for example, has had a whole series of problems--tendinitis in both shoulders, pulled muscle in one thigh, food poisoning, flu and some sort of a disorder to his nervous system.

Daland said: “I’m more optimistic about the end of the season than about now. Your season is judged on how you finish in the NCAAs, but everyone knows that winning the duel meets is important. There’s no prize for it, there’s no anything for it, but everyone knows that winning the meets is important.

“It’s not like football where you have to win league games to qualify for the Rose Bowl or anything. But we want to win them.”

Meanwhile, with Daland’s daughter, Leslie, out of the USC women’s lineup last weekend because of a bad shoulder, the USC women lost to UCLA, 186-82.

Kathy Hettche, who had strep throat herself, swam in place of Leslie in the mile and came in second. And that was after UCLA’s divers had already given the Bruins a 25-9 lead going into the meet.

Don LaMont, the USC women’s coach, was embarrassed by the one-sided score. But he was not panic-stricken. “That score is not indicative of the differences in the two teams,” he said. “Maybe we should have lost the meet, but not like that. Our program is not that far off. When you come in and your big guns don’t fire, that’s an emotional letdown.”

LaMont said: “We have two weeks until the Pac-10s, so we have to hope with all the doctors and God’s care, we’ll be healthy. Leslie is back in the water, and that will make a big difference.”

Stanford’s women won the Pac-10 championship last year, with USC second and UCLA third. And LaMont thinks that Stanford, which finished second in the NCAA meet, should be favored again.

“I really feel that the Pac-10 is the toughest competition in the nation,” LaMont said. Five out of the nine Pac-10 schools that compete in swimming are in the top 10 of the nation--Stanford, Cal, USC, UCLA and Arizona State.

Notes

David Lundberg, formerly of Stanford and competing now for a touring U.S. Swimming team, won the 100- and 200-meter breaststroke events in the East German national meet earlier this week. Anna Pettis-Scott finished third in the 50-meter in 26.06 seconds behind East Germany’s Katrin Meissner (25.75) and world record-holder Tamara Costache of Romania (25.82). Pablo Morales, also formerly of Stanford, tied for second in the 100-meter butterfly in 55.49. The winning time, by East German Thomas Dressler, was 55:45. The U.S. team will go on to compete in West Germany this weekend. . . . LaDonnis Loury is on the trip, her first international trip. Last summer, when she was 14, her parents did not allow her to make the Pan Pacific trip to Australia. . . . In two games last weekend at Newport Harbor High School, the U.S. Water Polo team beat Cuba, 10-8 and 12-10. The U.S. team is 3-0 this season after beating Spain in January. The team’s next two games will be against Japan in San Francisco March 13 and at Belmont Plaza pool in Long Beach March 18. The U.S. Water Polo team will make its first pre-Olympic East Coast trip March 28-April 2 to play Italy in Boston, Providence, R.I., Annapolis, Md., and Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Italy is ranked No. 3 in the world. The United States is ranked No. 4.