You are working on Staging1

2021 Zone E: Stanford Men Go 1-2, Cardinal Qualify Four Divers On Day 1

Though we’re not DiveDove, we do dabble in diving coverage, and as diving can have a major impact on the NCAA Swimming & Diving Championships, we cover NCAA Zone Diving – mainly through the lens of how national diving qualifiers could impact the team points battles later this month.

2021 NCAA Zone Diving

  • Zone A: Greensboro Aquatic Center / Greensboro, NC
    • Thursday, March 11 – Saturday, March 13
    • Live Results
  • Zone B: Greensboro Aquatic Center / Greensboro, NC
  • Zone C: University of Kentucky / Lexington, KY
  • Zone D: University of Kentucky / Lexington, KY
    • Thursday, March 11 – Saturday, March 13
    • Live Results
  • Zone E: Northern Arizona University / Flagstaff, AZ

Stanford qualified two men and two women for NCAAs, with the men going 1-2 on 3-meter to open the Zone E Championships.

Conor Casey won the 3-meter event and Noah Vigran was second. Both were NCAA qualifiers as freshmen in 2019, with Vigran placing 6th at NCAAs on 3-meter. Now juniors, the duo should be in line to score individually in at least this event, if not multiple events, at NCAAs.

On the women’s side, both Daria Lenz and Mia Paulsen earned invites on day 1 via the 1-meter springboard. Lenz was a B finalist at NCAAs as a freshman in 2019. Paulsen earned an invite in 2019 but didn’t score.

Arizona’s Delaney Schnell won the event by about 35 points. She was a three-event scorer at 2019 NCAAs, but interestingly enough, this was actually her worst event that year with a 13th-place showing. Schnell was 6th on 3-meter and 4th on platform that year, so winning this event has to be a good sign for her all-around scoring chances come NCAAs.

Women’s 1-meter is by far the deepest event in this zone as far as NCAA invites go. The entire top 12 earned NCAA bids on 1-meter. That includes several top-level contending teams. Cal got Briana Thai into the meet in 10th. Stanford qualified its two divers, and USC booked Nike Agunbiade into NCAAs.

Current Qualifiers

Reimbursed divers are in bold, with invited-but-not-reimbursed divers in non-bold. You can read more about the distinction below.

Women
Diver Events
Delaney Schnell, Arizona 1m
Daphne Wils, Hawaii 1m
Ximena Lechuga Gonzalez, SDSU 1m
Hannah Butler, UCLA 1m
Daria Lenz, Stanford 1m
Nike Agunbiade, USC 1m
Mia Paulsen, Stanford 1m
Melissa Mirafuentes, Wyoming 1m
Lizzy de Cocco, Utah 1m
Briana Thai, Cal 1m
Kennedy Cribbs, BYU 1m
Emma Ruchala, Utah 1m

 

Men
Diver Events
Conor Casey, Stanford 3m
Noah Vigran, Stanford 3m
Georgii Korovin, USC 3m
Tony Chen, Utah 3m
Max Burman, Hawaii 3m
Bjorn Markentin, Arizona 3m
Eric Correa, Arizona 3m

SIMPLIFIED INVITE PROCEDURES

You can read a more in-depth look at the selection process here. Effectively, each Zone earns a specific number of qualifying spots in each event, based on how that Zone performed at NCAAs last year. Divers who place inside the qualifying places earn an NCAA invite. A diver invited in one event can compete at NCAAs in any other diving event where they were top 12 in their Zone meet. The highest-placing divers earn NCAA reimbursement, while lower-placing qualifiers can compete at NCAAs, but their school must pay for their travel and lodging at the meet.

1
Leave a Reply

Subscribe
Notify of

1 Comment
newest
oldest most voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
GERARD DUNN
3 years ago

DiveDove sounds like a winner! Bring it on!!! LOVE to see diving coverage. Keep it up!

About Jared Anderson

Jared Anderson

Jared Anderson swam for nearly twenty years. Then, Jared Anderson stopped swimming and started writing about swimming. He's not sick of swimming yet. Swimming might be sick of him, though. Jared was a YMCA and high school swimmer in northern Minnesota, and spent his college years swimming breaststroke and occasionally pretending …

Read More »