Quance Picks USC Over Top Pac-10 Rivals : Swimming: Coaching change in Trojan program helps sway Granada Hills High standout.

Kristine Quance, the most heavily recruited swimmer in the nation, said Tuesday she will sign a letter of intent with USC, picking the Trojans over UCLA, Arizona and two-time defending national champion Stanford.

Quance, of Granada Hills High, is expected to sign today, the first day of the spring signing period. Quance is a six-time national champion, including titles in the 200- and 400-meter individual medley events she won this month in Nashville, Tenn. She is ranked No. 1 in the world in the 400.

Initially, USC was not a finalist, but the Pacific 10 Conference school entered the picture two weeks ago when Coach Darrell Fick resigned and was replaced by Mark Schubert, the Trojan men’s coach.

Schubert, one of the most successful swimming coaches in the world, coached the 1992 U. S. Olympic women’s team and, since 1976, has placed 22 swimmers on Olympic teams.

Quance, who missed the ’92 Games because of mononucleosis, said that Schubert can prepare her for the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta.

“Missing out on ’92 makes ’96 so important now,” she said. “I want not just to make the (Olympic) team but to do well in Atlanta. That’s my No. 1 goal.

“It’s hard because at Stanford, you’re pretty much guaranteed an NCAA ring, but an Olympic medal is more important.”

Quance compares Schubert’s training method to the regimen she followed at Calabasas-based CLASS Aquatics under Coach Bud McAllister, an assistant of Schubert’s at Mission Viejo in the 1970s.

“I like the way (Schubert’s) workouts are set up,” Quance said. “The intensity and the kind of yardage is a lot like Bud’s. A lot of people don’t want that kind of coach, but I like working hard.”

Quance also was impressed by Schubert’s decision to combine the men’s and women’s programs at USC. As a result, she will train in the same lanes with the Trojan men who swim her specialties, the individual medleys, the 100 and 200 breaststroke and the 200 butterfly.