Miami (Ohio)’s Pei Lin and Ohio State’s Zhipeng Zeng each won their second event on night 2 of the Zone C Diving Championships.
Lin won the women’s 3-meter and Zeng the men’s 1-meter. Both will go for clean sweeps tomorrow on platform.
It’s been a great meet so far for the Notre Dame women, who added a third NCAA-qualifying diver on day 2. Anne Crea was 6th on 3-meter, joining two of her teammates on the NCAA invite list.
Indiana and Louisville are also diving well. IU’s women already have two divers in, and the men added Cody Choldren after a 6th-place finish. Louisville’s Andrea Aquista took 5th to double up on qualifying spots, and Sean Piner joined the men’s NCAA team after taking 7th.
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 | Pei Lin, MI (OH) | Zhipeng Zeng, OSU |
| 2 | 1-meter Champ | ||
| 3 | Platform Champ | ||
| 4 | 3-meter 2nd | Haley Allen, OSU | 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 | Stephen Romanik, OSU |
| 9 | Platform 3rd | ||
| 10 | 3-meter 4th | Emma Gaboury, ND | |
| 11 | 1-meter 4th | Rebecca Hamperian, KY | Sebastian Masterton, KY |
| 12 | Platform 4th | ||
| 13 | 3-meter 5th | Andrea Aquista, LOU | Andrew Cramer, NU |
| 14 | 1-meter 5th | Michal Bower, IU | Alex Chan, EMU |
| 15 | Platform 5th | ||
| 16 | 3-meter 6th | Anne Crea, ND | Max Showalter, PUR |
| 17 | 1-meter 6th | Lindsey Streepey, ND | Cody Choldren, IU |
| 18 | Platform 6th | ||
| 19 | 3-meter 7th | ||
| 20 | 1-meter 7th | Sean Piner, LOU | |
| 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 | — | |
| 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.
