Before switching into offseason mode, four Bobcats will take at least one more dip into the pool this weekend.
Four members of the Ohio diving team will compete Thursday through Saturday at the 2012 NCAA Zone Diving Championships in Bloomington, Ind.
Freshmen Haleigh Bartlett and Morgan Srail, redshirt sophomore MaryRose Hillstrom and sophomore Kristin Capcik will be competing for Ohio. That marks the first time in program history that four divers will compete at the Diving Zones in one year.
To qualify for the event, divers must score higher than a predetermined threshold in at least one event during the season to qualify for the Diving Zones. Once they qualify, the divers travel to the event to try to earn a spot in the NCAA Championships.
Diving coach Russ Dekker said he wants his divers to enjoy the moment and not get too caught up in the hype, especially since there will be Olympians at the event. This will be the first time going to zones for everyone except Hillstrom, and Dekker said he is anxious to see how they perform.
“With three out of four being a first-time experience for them, that’s exactly what it is, it’s just going to be a good learning experience for certain years,” he said.
The Bobcats are in Zone C, which includes Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan and Ohio.
There will be 63 competitors in the Bobcats’ zone, and this year Ohio’s zone will have seven slots open to qualify for the NCAAs. Last year, Zone C had nine spots, but two were eliminated because its zone’s qualifiers did not perform well enough to convince NCAA judges that the zone deserved its final two slots.
Ohio’s zone has the most participants out of all five zones. Dekker said usually the top three divers on the 3-meter board, the top three from the 1-meter board and the winner of the platform advance to the national championships. But if the same diver does well in both categories, then an extra diver will qualify.
Every zone qualifier performs six dives, and 18 divers advance to the next day.
The high number of participants means Ohio’s divers will have to wait between each dive before performing the next one. Dekker said he has tried to simulate that scenario in practice the best he could for the meet.
“We try and make it so the first one they do has to be good. You don’t get three or four chances to do what we’re looking for,” Dekker said. “It’s got to be right the first time.”
Dekker said the Diving Zones will be a big challenge, and one of the strongest pieces of advice he gave his divers was to not get caught up in other divers’ scores.
“You can control your dives only, and let’s make it the best six dives you’re capable of doing, and wherever we end up, that’s where we end up,” Dekker said.
Whatever the results, Dekker said that this year has been a great ride for his group, along with a good learning experience.
“Just getting the girls qualified to this point has been great,” he said. “Go at it with no pressure, no expectations, let’s see what we can do, and then we’ll build on that for next year and the following year and so on.”
mk277809@ohiou.edu
