Ohio diving coach Russ Dekker called the NCAA Zone Championship a great learning experience for his young diving squad last season. His expectations for his team have risen in the 370 days since.
“I would like to see a better overall finish with each of the girls and do better than last year,” Dekker said. “They are all capable of doing great things.”
So far the divers have shown “great things” all season long — only being outscored once in nine dual meets, breaking two school records and having had the best Mid-American Conference Championship finish in program history.
Haleigh Bartlett, Kristin Capcik, Morgan Srail and MaryRose Hillstrom could crown their record-breaking season by individually advancing to the NCAA Championship in Indianapolis next weekend. A trip to the championship would mark the first in more than 12 years for the Bobcats. The path to Indianapolis for the divers, however, is challenging.
While swimmers have to swim a time ranked in the top 38 in the country to quality, the divers have to achieve a benchmark throughout the season and then compete for nine qualifying spots at the NCAA Zone Championship, Dekker said.
According to the coach, 57 divers have qualified for the three-day event at Purdue, meaning Ohio’s divers will have to take a completely different mindset into the meet, which is much bigger than normal. That being said, the odds are against Ohio’s divers.
“I think it will be extremely tough,” Dekker said. “We are not really used to spending 25 minutes between two dives. It’s hard to stay warm, it’s hard to stay loose. (We prepare) as much as we can, but if we were to do that during our practice times they would only do four dives.”
The Bobcats had a week and a half after the MAC Championship to prepare for the Zone Championship. The diving squad spent all of spring break close to the Aquatic Center to work on their spins and flips.
“It was hard after such an exciting weekend (at the championship) to get back into it,” said Srail, a sophomore.
The diving squad has been practicing the same dives all season long and will stick to their same diving line-up they had at the conference championship — with the exception of Bartlett.
Bartlett, a sophomore, changed one of her dives in the 1-meter diving competition.
“I will change (it) because I think I can score higher,” she said.
She placed third in the MAC Championship and will need to place fourth or better to receive an invitation to the NCAA Championship.
Last year she was one of four divers that didn’t advance.
“Last year was my first time going,” she said. “I didn’t know what to expect and now I do. I want to do better this year.”
Dekker also sees a huge advantage in the experience of this year’s team. Srail and Bartlett were both freshman last year, while Hillstrom and Capcik were only sophomores.
“They know what they are in for this time,” Dekker said. “Just having this experience will help quite a bit this time around.”
The experience will be needed as Ohio faces teams from the Big Ten and the Southeastern Conference. Dekker, however, will ask his squad to stay focused, take each dive one at a time and not pay too much attention to other teams.
“You can’t go back and change (earlier dives), so don’t waste your time on them,” he said. “(You) don’t get invested in watching someone else doing a good dive or a bad dive. We will see the results when everybody is done.”
am794811@ohiou.edu
