Texas Men Add Third Diver To NCAAs on Day 2 of 2016 Zone D Champs

The Texas Longhorn men continue to roll toward an NCAA title defense, adding a third NCAA-qualifying diver on the second day of the Zone D Championships.

Full results

This time it was Sean O’Brien who added his name to the NCAA qualifying list for Texas, joining Mark Anderson and Cory Bowersox, who both qualified yesterday and doubled up on qualifying performances today.

Their chief rivals Cal have no divers qualified as of yet, and neither do NC State, ranked second based on the swimming psych sheet scores.

Minnesota also continued to stack its NCAA roster, adding one more male and one more female diver. Yu Zhou won her second event with the 3-meter springboard, remaining perfect at the meet so far. Meanwhile Lexi Tenebaum earned an NCAA bid in 4th, and Manny Pollard joined the list on the men’s side in 5th.

Texas A&M’s Sam Thornton won the men’s 1-meter in a great day for the Aggies, host of the Zone D meet. He earned a new NCAA bid as well as women’s 3-meter runner-up Madison Hudkins.

The full list of qualifiers is below. 7 women and 8 men will earn NCAA reimbursement out of Zone D, and the rest of the names on the list are eligible to compete at NCAAs on their school’s budget.

Priority Finisher Women Men
1 3-meter Champ Yu Zhou, MINN Mark Anderson, TX
2 1-meter Champ Yu Zhou, MINN Sam Thornton, A&M
3 Platform Champ
4 3-meter 2nd Madison Hudkins, A&M Matt Barnard, MINN
5 1-meter 2nd Elizabeth Cui, LSU Cory Bowersox, TX
6 Platform 2nd
7 3-meter 3rd Cassie Weil, LSU Clark Thomas, MIZZ
8 1-meter 3rd Meghan O’Brien, TX Mark Anderson, TX
9 Platform 3rd
10 3-meter 4th Lexi Tenebaum, MINN Dylan Zoe, MINN
11 1-meter 4th Jessica Ramberg, MINN Sean O’Brien, TX
12 Platform 4th
13 3-meter 5th Meghan O’Brien, TX Cory Bowersox, TX
14 1-meter 5th Anna Filipcic, NEB Manny Pollard, MINN
15 Platform 5th
16 3-meter 6th Nicole Gillis, AIR Bryce Klein, SMU
17 1-meter 6th Meghan Houston, TX Dylan Zoe, MINN
18 Platform 6th
19 3-meter 7th Meghan Houston, TX Tyler Henschel, A&M
20 1-meter 7th Matt Barnard, MINN
21 Platform 7th
22 3-meter 8th Elizabeth Cui, LSU
23 1-meter 8th
24 Platform 8th
25 3-meter 9th Anna Filipcic, NEB
26 1-meter 9th
27 Platform 9th

(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.

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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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