CSUN Left With Sinking Feeling Despite Easy Victory : College swimming: Matador women breeze to Pacific Conference title but most of their time goals are not met.

Never mind the dominant performance turned in by the Cal State Northridge women’s swim team in the Pacific Conference championships. The clock was the real opponent.

That’s why the Matadors aren’t jumping up and down over their landslide victory last weekend in Las Vegas. Northridge won 11 of the 18 events and outscored runner-up Nevada Reno, 736.5 to 588.5, but the Matadors fell short of their time goals.

Not one Northridge swimmer established a Division I national qualifying time--even though none were expected to do so. As a result, the Matadors’ final meet was the conference championships, which doesn’t compare to their final meet of years gone by, the Division II championships.

“I just thought it wasn’t a very good meet for any of us compared to our goal times,” said Northridge junior Kathy Ruiz, a double individual-event winner. “I think our conference was too slow and we weren’t really up for it. It was nothing like Division II nationals.”

In Ruiz’s view, the conference, including third-place Northern Arizona (513), followed by Air Force Academy (422), UC San Diego (421.5), Pepperdine (298), University of San Diego (267.5) and UC Santa Cruz (98), does not stack up to the teams Northridge faced in winning the Division II title from 1987-89 and in finishing runner-up last year to Oakland (Mich.) University.

It seems the move from Division II to Division I has left the Matadors in no-man’s-land. They are too fast for Division II, too fast for the Division I Pacific Conference, but not fast enough for the Division I championships.

“At Division IIs, we would improve in prelims in the morning and improve even more at finals,” Ruiz said. “But at this meet (Pacific Conference) we didn’t have to get up for it. The tension wasn’t there. We won easily.

“We worked very hard so it was disappointing for all of us. As hard as we worked out we didn’t come close to our best times. It is just terrible to end up this way. The workouts compared to last year were incredible. The sets were so much harder.

“To me, it seemed like a waste at the end.”

Ruiz, a transfer from Tampa, set a meet record in winning the 200 individual medley in 2 minutes 8.52 seconds and went under the meet record in the 100 breaststroke with a 1:07.08.

Northridge senior Michelle Sulak of Covina earned three individual gold medals, but she was equally disappointed.

“It was very different for those people who usually go to Division II nationals,” Sulak said. “It was a different atmosphere.”

Sulak won the 1,650 freestyle (17:19.14), the 500-yard freestyle (5:00.41) and the 200 freestyle (1:53.20), the latter two in meet-record time. In an impressive display of versatility she took runner-up honors in the 100 freestyle with a clocking of 52.95.

The Matadors’ other individual event champion was Tina Dodson, a senior from Farmingdale, N. Y., who finished first in the 100 butterfly in a meet-record 58.55.

A dominant performance in the relays helped Northridge to rack up points. The Matadors won all five relays--four in meet-record time.

Ruiz, Sulak and Dodson swam on the relay teams as well as Denise Lamoureaux, a freshman from Burbank; Nicole Hudson, a sophomore from Ventura; Andrea Bardin, a senior from Culver City; Carol Eisele, a senior from Carlsbad; Marti Carlson, a freshman from Olympia, Wash.; and Marga Morgan, a sophomore from Livermore, Calif.

The men’s team won nine of 18 events and finished fourth behind Northern Arizona (692), Alaska-Anchorage (635.5), and UC San Diego (609).

John Kunishima, a junior from Hacienda Heights, won three events: the 50 freestyle (20.40), 100 freestyle (46.10) and 200 freestyle (1:41.51), the latter in meet-record time. John Pentlarge, a senior from Westlake Village, took firsts in record time in the 200 individual medley (1:53.94) and the 200 butterfly (1:53.79).

The Matadors won four relays with Kunishima and Pentlarge swimming legs along with Dave Lowham, a junior from Ridgecrest; Matt Johnson, a sophomore from San Marino; and Dave Ruttenburg, a sophomore from Chino Hills.