The dual season is wrapped up and all Mid-American Conference titles have been determined, but four divers and one swimmer still returned to the Aquatic Center. Their season is not over.
Though Laurin Williams has already secured a spot in NCAA swimming championships by beating the NCAA B-cut in the 1650-yard freestyle, the divers have to compete for an invitation at the NCAA Zone Diving Championships at Purdue University on Thursday and Friday.
In order to be allowed entry in the first place, the group of Haleigh Bartlett, Mary-Rose Hillstrom, Kristin Capcik and Morgan Srail has already beaten the NCAA cuts of 265 points and 280 points on the 1-meter diving board and 3-meter diving board, respectively.
The NCAA Zone Diving Championships is a regional tournament in which only the best divers qualify for the NCAA championships. Nine invitations are given out to the best divers on the 1-meter and 3-meter diving boards.
The Bobcats should be able to compete for those nine NCAA spots, as they had the best season since diving coach Russ Dekker took over the program nine years ago.
Not only did the diving team break last year’s school records in the 1-meter and 3-meter diving competition, but it also scored the most points at the MAC championships in program history, finishing with 88 points overall.
Still, there might be some disappointment to overcome after the championships, as they weren’t able to meet their own high expectations at the MAC championship.
“We can place four divers in the top eight,” Dekker said before the tournament, but instead he had to watch his team qualify only two for the finals in both events.
“They thought they could do better,” Ohio coach Greg Werner said.
The Bobcats will have had almost a week and a half to improve on their dives, which is enough time to perfect the spins and flips but not enough to work on new dives.
“Once MACs and Zones are over we start working on new dives,” Bartlett said.
Whether that will be enough to qualify for the NCAA championships in Indianapolis depends on Ohio’s consistency. Ohio outscored Eastern Michigan’s MAC champion Danielle Hulvey and runner-up Kelly Hendricks at the beginning of the season but lost to them by more than 15 points combined at the championships. The Eagles will compete with the Bobcats for the nine NCAA invitations.
“I am looking forward to the NCAA Zones,” Dekker said. “Last year the same quadruple qualified for the Zone competition and nobody advanced.”
This year the Bobcats want to change that.
am794811@ohiou.edu
