Quance Denied by Nall in Breaststroke Final : Swimming: Northridge resident can’t hold early pace, but second-place finish yields berth on Pan Pacific team.

Kristine Quance beat Anita Nall when Nall was suffering from shoulder and knee injuries. Then, Nall beat Quance while Quance was suffering from mononucleosis.

Now Nall has the upper hand again, winning despite her own bout with the debilitating illness and denying Quance a second consecutive national 200-meter breaststroke title.

Quance, 18, of Northridge, couldn’t hold Nall’s early pace and Nall, the world record-holder, had plenty of kick left to hold off Quance in the last 40 meters.

The 17-year-old from North Baltimore (Md.) Aquatics touched in 2 minutes 27.79 seconds to Quance’s 2:29.51.

As the runner-up, Quance earned a berth on the Pan Pacific team that will represent the United States next month in Kobe, Japan.

“That’ll be great fun,” Quance said. “I want to have fun here (at nationals) and in Japan. I’ve been too serious. The last time Anita beat me I was devastated. This time, I feel better about it.”

Quance’s coach was pleased, although his pupil’s time was 2.2 seconds slower than the 1991 clocking that made her the second-fastest 200 backstroker in U.S. history.

“Her breaststroke training hasn’t been as fast since then (1991) and she injured her leg at the Northern Arizona training camp, so for a while she didn’t want to risk kicking all the way out,” said Bud McAllister of Calabasas-based CLASS Aquatics. “You tear a leg muscle and it could be the end of your career like it was for (Olympian) John Moffett and Amy Shaw.”

Nall’s dominance and Quance’s emergence in the 400 individual medley are also factors in Quance’s lack of improvement in the 200 breaststroke. It is slowly being replaced as her strongest event by the 400 individual medley, which will be contested tonight.

Alexis Larsen, Quance’s CLASS teammate, is also competing in the 400 individual medley. Larsen knocked four seconds off her best time Monday night while finishing third in the 800 freestyle, one place shy of a berth on the Pan Pacific team. Larsen still has a chance of making the team on Friday in the 1,500 freestyle race.