Cal Men Add Diver Robinson On Final Day of Zone E

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.

2018 NCAA ZONE DIVING

  • Zones A, B, D, E: Monday, March 5 – Wednesday, March 7
  • Zone C: Thursday, March 8 – Saturday, March 10
  • Host schools:
    • Zone A: Rutgers University
    • Zone B: University of Tennessee
    • Zone C: Ohio State University
    • Zone D: University of Minnesota
    • Zone E: Northern Arizona University
  • NCAA selection primer

Though they can’t match national rival Texas’s three NCAA qualifying divers, the California men will have two competing in Minneapolis, with Jonathan Robinson scoring the last qualifying spot in Zone E on the final night.

Zone E results

Robinson joins Connor Callahan on the Cal NCAA team, bringing them right up to their roster cap of 18.

Stanford’s Theodore Miclau won platform on a great night for the Cardinal men. Tarek Abdelghany was fourth and those two will represent Stanford at NCAAs.

On the women’s side, Madison Sthamann won for Hawaii, earning herself an NCAA bid. UCLA’s Eloise Belanger was second for the third-straight event.

QUALIFYING CHART

Athletes in bold have earned NCAA reimbursement.

Priority Finisher Women Men
1 3-meter Champ Sharae Zheng, NEV Dashiell Enos, USC
2 1-meter Champ Sharae Zheng, NEV Youssef Selim, ASU
3 Platform Champ Madison Sthamann, HAWA Theodore Miclau, STAN
4 3-meter 2nd Eloise Belanger, UCLA Tarek Abdelghany, STAN
5 1-meter 2nd Eloise Belanger, UCLA Johan Sandell, HAWA
6 Platform 2nd Eloise Belanger, UCLA Scotia Mullin, WYO
7 3-meter 3rd Kassidy Cook STAN Henry Fusaro, USC
8 1-meter 3rd Frida Kaellgren, ASU Dylan Marin, USC
9 Platform 3rd Delaney Schnell, ARIZ Dashiell Enos, USC
10 3-meter 4th Ashley McCool, ASU Youssef Selim, ASU
11 1-meter 4th Kassidy Cook, STAN Dashiell Enos, USC
12 Platform 4th Mara Aiacoboae, ASU Tarek Abdelghany, STAN
13 3-meter 5th Alexandra Caplan, SDSU Theodore Miclau, STAN
14 1-meter 5th Zoe Lei, NEV Nathan Gonzalez, BYU
15 Platform 5th Karla Contreras, WYO Johan Sandell, HAWA
16 3-meter 6th Karla Contreras, WYO Johan Sandell, HAWA
17 1-meter 6th Delaney Schnell, ARIZ
18 Platform 6th Sharae Zheng, NEV Youssef Selim, ASU
19 3-meter 7th Frida Kaellgren, ASU Connor Callahan, CAL
20 1-meter 7th Ashley McCool, ASU
21 Platform 7th Madison Witt, USC Jonathan Robinson, CAL
22 3-meter 8th Mykayla Fielding, UNLV
23 1-meter 8th Phoebe Lamay, CAL
24 Platform 8th Carly Souza, USC
25 3-meter 9th Delaney Schnell, ARIZ
26 1-meter 9th Karla Contreras, WYO

There are five zone meets spread across the country that allow divers to qualify for the NCAA Championships. Based on performances at the previous NCAAs each zone earns a set number of qualifying spots.NCAA Diving QUALIFYING PROCEDURES

Take a look at the qualifying spots for each zone and each event:

WOMEN

WOMEN ELIGIBILITY
1m 3m Platform
Zone A 6 6 5
Zone B 7 7 9
Zone C 8 10 10
Zone D 11 9 9
Zone E 9 9 8

MEN

MEN ELIGIBILITY
1m 3m Platform
Zone A 6 5 5
Zone B 6 6 7
Zone C 10 10 11
Zone D 9 8 6
Zone E 5 7 7

A priority chart determines who gets the reimbursement spots. The first priority spot is taken by the winner of each event beginning with the 3-meter champ, followed by the 1-meter champ and then the platform champ. If an athlete wins two events, they will still only take up one slot which means the NCAA will keep adding rows to this chart until the zone meet reimbursement quota is met.

According to the rules set in 2015 that allowed more divers into the meet, any diver who lands in the qualifying spots for their zone earns a spot to compete in the NCAA Championships. If the diver earns eligibility in one event, they can automatically compete in any of the other two events at NCAAs as long as they finished in the top 12 in their zone in that event.

The NCAA made a distinction between “eligible” and “reimbursed” athletes. Divers qualifying outside of the reimbursement spots will not have their travel, lodging, or meet expenses covered by the NCAA.  Instead the individual school must decide if they’re willing to pay the bill themselves to give that diver an opportunity to participate in the NCAA Championships.

REIMBURSEMENT
Women Men
Zone A 4 4
Zone B 6 7
Zone C 10 10
Zone D 12 9
Zone E 9 5

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Dan
6 years ago

I guess I see how this system can add more divers to the NCAA. If I read the above information correctly, there are 9 guaranteed spots for the women from zone E with up to 26 possible spots which lead to 15 qualified divers (I would assume that all schools would be interested in sending swimmers/divers that have qualified even if they have to pay for them).

Anon
6 years ago

Is there ever any talk of separating the sport of diving so that it does not affect the results of the completely different sport of swimming? If not, why not?

Should competitive cheerleading scores affect the outcome of football games? Of course not.

Dan
Reply to  Anon
6 years ago

Not the greatest argument, but Swimming and Diving both belong to the same international Federation, don’t think Football and Cheerleading belong to the same international federation.
Swimming and diving have been part of the same competitions/championships for well over 100 years I think.
I do think that there has been talked about separating now and then but never anything serious.

PerpetualAutumn
Reply to  Dan
6 years ago

Separate quotas could make sense though, or at least squads that have hit their limit could be allowed to expand by one additional diver as an earned bonus. Kind of like what they did with Olympic ice skating, where based on how a country scored at the World Championships, they could earn one more spot in the Olympics (from 2 to 3).

Joe
6 years ago

Good sign for Cal men

AvidSwimFan
6 years ago

What does this mean for the Stanford women? Since they only qualified 1 diver? I’m assuming they still have to seat a qualified swimmer out because of the 18 athletes cap as they are at 18.5 with Cook?

dmswim
Reply to  AvidSwimFan
6 years ago

Yes I assume they won’t leave an Olympian diver at home. Tough to pick which swimmer to leave behind though.

Jay ryan
Reply to  dmswim
6 years ago

There is another point. Coaches leaving the divers off the squad in place of a qualifying swimmer would constitute a repudiation of the entire diving program in place of 1/18th of the swimming representation. This would not be a good recipe for harmony and mutual support between swimming and diving coaches, trainers, etc. I assume that if the Cal men, who qualified 17 swimmers, had one more swimmer qualify, the lowest seeded swimmer would have to stay home to make room for their 2 diving qualifiers on the NCAA billet.

gator
Reply to  Jared Anderson
6 years ago

Agree with all this, except that I doubt Stanford is too worried whether they win by 400 vs. 420 points!

Jay Ryan
Reply to  Jared Anderson
6 years ago

Yes, that would be a tough decision that Cal fortunately does not have to make. Especially with Kyle Coan a senior achieving his first individual NCAA invite this year.

Sarcastic
Reply to  Jay Ryan
6 years ago

Kyle made it to NCAA as a sophomore in the 200 free

AvidSwimFan
Reply to  Jared Anderson
6 years ago

Based on your argument, Cook is more likely to score for Stanford than the lowest seeded swimmer with an invite. I don’t envy the coaching staff dealing with the decision making or breaking the news, nor do I envy the swimmer who would love to attend their first NCAA championship.

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 …

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