The University of Redlands and Bulldog Athletics hosted the 2012 Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) Diving Prelims at the beautiful Thompson Aquatic Center on Saturday and Sunday. Amidst some of the best diving competition within the conference in quite some time, the winners of each event all recorded NCAA Division III qualifying scores for a championship meet.
The top eight divers from all four events now advance to the SCIAC Finals, which will take place on Saturday, Feb. 18, at the University of Redlands.
Senior Tyler Aisner (Paso Robles, CA) of Whittier College scored 458.90 points to win the men's one-meter competition, while freshman James Stevick (Berkeley, CA) of Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Colleges uncorked an impressive score of 532.20 points for first place on the three-meter. These divers traded places in the standings to finish second on the other's top board.
Caltech's senior Justin Johnson (Aurora, IL) registered third-place scores of 435.80 on the one-meter and 459.15 on the three-meter as the only other diver to earn more than 400 points.
For the women, sophomore Jessica Robson (Elk Grove, CA) of Occidental College took home both top prizes, scoring 426.20 on the one-meter board and 422.45 on the high dive.
CMS' junior Carmen Lundell (Wayzata, MN) finished second on both boards, earning 413.26 on the one-meter and 387.55 on the three-meter. Sophomore Sheyenne Machida (Kahului, HI) of Cal Lutheran University captured third place on the low dive with 392.75 points, with Redlands' senior Shelby Mann (Bainbridge Island, WA) rounding out the top-3 performers by racking up 308.00 points on the three-meter. Mann also took sixth in the one-meter event with a score of 315.50.
By posting a score of 222.05 for seventh place, freshman DrewAnn Andrews (Pasadena, CA) will represent Redlands in the three-meter finals, while junior Lindsey Zehner (Portland, OR) also qualified for Saturday's championship meet with her eighth-place showing of 250.75 points on the one-meter.
In addition, sophomore Eli Niebuhr (Las Vegas, NV) headlined the Bulldog men's divers with his fourth-place finish in the one-meter event with a score of 382.60. He also took fifth in the three-meter standings, scoring 378.20 points.
The SCIAC Diving Finals begin with Saturday's morning portion at 11 a.m. and include the women's three-meter and the men's one-meter competition. The afternoon segment is scheduled for 3 p.m., finishing the exciting day with the women's one-meter and the men's three-meter. Results will be posted at http://www.goredlands.com/sports/swimdive/2011-12/schedule as soon as they become available.