Columbus, Ohio— It’s been a remarkable year for Colin Zeng. In addition to his national championship in platform diving, he won a pair of Big Ten Championships last month on his way to being named the Diver of the Championships. He was the conference’s Diver of the Week five times and he placed first in 24 of the 30 events he competed in this season.
Now he can add one more accolade to his increasingly lengthy résumé: 2016 Big Ten Diver of the Year. He was the only Big Ten award winner to receive his honor unanimously, the first to do that since 2011.
Zeng is the eighth diver to earn this honor and the first since 2007. In the scope of the conference, he is the seventh Big Ten diver to win platform national championship, and he was the first diver since David Boudia of Purdue in 2011 to win B1G titles in two diving events in the same season.
And he’s not the only one to be recognized for a great season in 2015-16. Head coach Justin Sochor was named Co-Big Ten Coach of the Year, sharing the honor with Wenbo Chen of Minnesota. Sochor is the first Ohio State diving coach other than Vince Panzano to win this award, who won his last in 2007 as well. Panzano had won the award six times, making Sochor the seventh.
Historically, Ohio State has the best diving program in the Big Ten. It trails only Indiana in terms of Diver and Diving Coach of the Year winners, but OSU has 83 individual Big Ten titles to its name, almost twice as many as the next school. The Buckeyes have also claimed far more national championships in diving than any other Big Ten team.
After this outstanding season Sochor, Zeng, and the rest of the Ohio State divers have kept that tradition going.
Swimming news courtesy of Ohio State Swimming & Diving.
