The Ohio State Buckeyes added 3 male divers to their NCAA roster on opening night of the Zone C Championships, while the Indiana women qualified a pair of divers.
Ohio State’s Zhipeng Zeng won the men’s 3-meter, gaining the top NCAA reimbursement spot of the meet.* Stephen Romanik was 4th and Clay White 9th to both qualify as well.
*Read up on the particulars of the NCAA selection system at the bottom of this post.
A potential factor in the women’s NCAA team race: Indiana qualified a pair of divers on night 1. Michal Bower was 4th on 1-meter and Lacey Houser 8th. Another team with top 10 potential that earned a diving berth was Louisville, which got Andrea Aquista in with an 11th-place finish.
The full qualifying list is below. 11 women and 8 men will earn NCAA reimbursement, while the rest of the qualifiers are eligible to compete at NCAAs on their school’s dime.
| Priority | Finisher | Women | Men |
| 1 | 3-meter Champ | Zhipeng Zeng, OSU | |
| 2 | 1-meter Champ | Pei Lin, MI (OH) | |
| 3 | Platform Champ | ||
| 4 | 3-meter 2nd | Joseph Cifelli, PUR | |
| 5 | 1-meter 2nd | Mary-Beth Dunnichay, PUR | |
| 6 | Platform 2nd | ||
| 7 | 3-meter 3rd | Joshua Arndt, IU | |
| 8 | 1-meter 3rd | Kaixuan Zhang, SIU | |
| 9 | Platform 3rd | ||
| 10 | 3-meter 4th | Stephen Romanik, OSU | |
| 11 | 1-meter 4th | Rebecca Hamperian, KY | |
| 12 | Platform 4th | ||
| 13 | 3-meter 5th | Andrew Cramer, NU | |
| 14 | 1-meter 5th | Michal Bower, IU | |
| 15 | Platform 5th | ||
| 16 | 3-meter 6th | Max Showalter, PUR | |
| 17 | 1-meter 6th | Lindsey Streepey, ND | |
| 18 | Platform 6th | ||
| 19 | 3-meter 7th | Sebastian Masterton, KY | |
| 20 | 1-meter 7th | Emma Gaboury, ND | |
| 21 | Platform 7th | ||
| 22 | 3-meter 8th | — | Thomas Gillis, EMU |
| 23 | 1-meter 8th | Lacey Houser, IU | — |
| 24 | Platform 8th | ||
| 25 | 3-meter 9th | — | Clay White, OSU |
| 26 | 1-meter 9th | Courtney Clark, KY | — |
| 27 | Platform 9th | — | |
| 28 | 3-meter 10th | — | — |
| 29 | 1-meter 10th | Alice Hottensmith, AKR | — |
| 30 | Platform 10th | — | |
| 31 | 3-meter 11th | — | — |
| 32 | 1-meter 11th | Andrea Aquista, LOU | — |
| 33 | Platform 11th | — | — |
| 34 | 3-meter 12th | — | — |
| 35 | 1-meter 12th | Olivia Rosendahl, NU | — |
(Athletes in bold are locked in for NCAA reimbursement. Athletes who have doubled up on qualifying spots are noted with a line through their lower priority slot.)
NCAA ZONE QUALIFYING PROCEDURES
From our refresher post, which you can find here.
Divers qualify for the NCAA Championships through Zone Meets spread across the country. Each zone earns a set number of NCAA qualifying spots based on the performances of that Zone at NCAAs in the past.
Here are the qualifying spots for each event in each zone:
Women
| 1M | 3M | PLATFORM | |
| Zone A | 5 | 6 | 6 |
| Zone B | 9 | 8 | 7 |
| Zone C | 12 | 7 | 10 |
| Zone D | 6 | 9 | 9 |
| Zone E | 9 | 11 | 9 |
Men
| 1M | 3M | PLATFORM | |
| Zone A | 4 | 5 | 4 |
| Zone B | 10 | 10 | 8 |
| Zone C | 7 | 9 | 8 |
| Zone D | 7 | 7 | 8 |
| Zone E | 8 | 5 | 8 |
Any diver who finishes within the qualifying spots for their zone earns eligibility for the NCAA Championships. Any diver who earns eligibility in one event can compete in any of the other two events at NCAAs, provided they finished inside the top 12 in their zone in that event.
The final wrinkle is a new rule from last season that makes a distinction between “eligible” athletes and “reimbursed” athletes. The NCAA loosened its rules last season to allow more divers into the meet, but divers qualifying under the new rules do not recieve reimbursement from the NCAA for their travel, lodging and meet expenses – that means it’s up to the individual school to decide if they will foot the bill themselves to allow the diver to compete at NCAAs.
Each zone has a set number of reimbursement spots between the three events combined:
| WOMEN | MEN | |
| Zone A | 5 | 4 |
| Zone B | 8 | 9 |
| Zone C | 11 | 8 |
| Zone D | 7 | 8 |
| Zone E | 10 | 6 |
The spots are determined by a priority chart. The winners of each event have first priority, starting with the 3-meter champ, then the 1-meter champ, then the platform champ. After that, the runners-up are added in the same order. If an athlete wins both 1-meter and 3-meter, they still only take one reimbursement slot, meaning the NCAA will keep adding rows of this chart until the reimbursement quota for that zone is met.
This is not even close to the swim of the week. Try Abbey Weitzeil 50 free.
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