SWIMMING : UCLA Women Aim for High Pac-10 Finish

The seventh-ranked UCLA women’s team is on a roll going into the Pacific 10 Conference swimming meet today through Sunday at the East Los Angeles College pool.

The Bruins defeated USC two weeks ago, 86-54, and Coach Cyndi Gallagher is hoping for a top-three finish this weekend.

“We hope to equal last year’s performance,” she said. “We have four girls qualified (for the NCAA meet in March) and hope to get a lot more. We were third last year and will challenge (Arizona State) for that again.”

Stanford, ranked No. 1 in the nation, and Cal, No. 4, will probably contend for the team championship. UCLA, Arizona State, and USC will battle for the next spots. Oregon dropped its swimming program in 1986 so only nine teams will compete.

UCLA, 7-2 overall and 3-2 in the conference, finished in a sixth-place tie with Michigan at last year’s NCAA meet. The Bruins have five All-Americans and several other swimmers who can score in championship meets.

For the Trojans, the performance against the Bruins was encouraging, despite the defeat. Going into the meet, USC Coach Darrell Fick knew that winning would be difficult because USC was giving away so many points in diving.

UCLA has a much stronger diving program than USC, and because two diving events are included in dual meets, and scored like the swimming events, the Trojans were starting with a 14-point deficit.

The 12th-ranked Trojans (9-6 and 0-5) have three All-Americans and several freshmen who have potential to score at the conference and NCAA meets. They finished fourth in the Pac-10 meet last year and 25th in the NCAA.

Fick is optimistic that USC will finish in the top five this weekend but will not be disappointed with a lower placing. Several of USC’s top swimmers have qualified for the NCAA meet and they will not be shaving for the conference meet.

“We’ll be aiming for third or fourth,” Fick said. “Cal and Stanford are just too deep, but we’ll be in with UCLA and Arizona State.”

Fick thinks the Trojans will improve on last year’s NCAA performance, and expects his swimmers to finish in the top 10. The team was dealt a setback, however, when Australian distance swimmer Janelle Elford changed her mind about attending USC after competing in last month’s Commonwealth Games.

Elford, the last person to have beaten Stanford’s Janet Evans in a distance freestyle event at a major meet, won a gold, a silver and a bronze at the Commonwealth games, and Fick was counting on her to help the Trojans in both meets.

USC’s men’s team defeated UCLA on Saturday, 69-44, and finished the regular season unbeaten in 11 meets. The Trojans are ranked second in the nation going into the Pac-10 meet March 5-7 at Belmont Plaza in Long Beach. UCLA, which is tied with Michigan for fourth, finished its regular season at 9-4 and 3-2.

It was USC’s fifth consecutive victory over UCLA. USC had two scorers out of a possible three in seven of the 11 individual events, including the 1,000- and 200-yard freestyles, in which it placed first through fourth.

After UCLA had swept Cal and Stanford two weeks ago, the Bruin-Trojan meet looked to be one of the top duals of the year. But the week after the sweep, UCLA had disciplinary problems and five swimmers were suspended for meets against Arizona State and Arizona. In addition, freshman backstroke ace Geoff Cronin missed those meets and the USC meet as well because of poor attendance at practice.

Matt Biondi and Tom Jager will meet again in 50-yard freestyle match races next month at Nevada Las Vegas and Iowa. They will swim March 2 at UNLV’s Buchanan Natatorium for $4,500 in prizes, $2,500 going to the winner. That race will be held in conjunction with the Nevada Short Course championships.

Meet director Dave Marsh, the coach of Las Vegas Gold swim team, has also lined up a 200-yard butterfly race between retirees Tracy Caulkins and Mary Meagher, and a 100-yard freestyle race between Rowdy Gaines and Australian Mark Stockwell.

Caulkins won 48 national championships and Meagher is still the world record-holder in the 100-and 200-meter butterfly events, and the U.S. record-holder in each the 100- and 200-yard butterfly. Each won three gold medals at the 1984 Olympics.

The race between Gaines and Stockwell pits the 1984 Olympic gold medalist against the silver medalist for the first time since those games. In their last meeting, Stockwell charged that Gaines jumped the start and should have been disqualified. Videotapes showed that Gaines did not come to a full stop before the starter started the race but the result stood.

On March 28, when they meet at Iowa, Biondi and Jager will be joined by Tom Williams, the 50-meter freestyle champion at the 1987 Pan-American Games.

The race, which will be held in conjunction with the U. S. Swimming Junior Olympic championships at the Iowa field house, will have a prize of $5,000 for the winner. As an added incentive, any swimmer who beats 19 seconds will win a new car. Biondi holds the American record of 19.15 seconds. Jager and Williams have swum 19.24 and 19.64 respectively.

Biondi beat Jager in the first match race in December at Long Beach.

Swimming Notes

Last month at the Commonwealth Games in Auckland, New Zealand, USC sophomore Gary Anderson won gold medals in the 200-meter individual medley, the 200-meter backstroke, and a silver medal in the 100-meter backstroke while competing for Canada. . . . Also at the Games, Glenn Housman of Australia became the second swimmer to break the 15-minute mark in the 1,500-meter freestyle, winning in 14:55.25. In the same race, 16-year-old Kieren Perkins, also of Australia, became the third swimmer with a time of 14:58.08. Vladimir Salnikov of the Soviet Union holds the world record, 14:54.76.