Live Scoring | Qualifying Info | List of Qualified Divers
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. -- The eight active Purdue divers this season -- five men and three women -- aim to advance to the NCAA Championships by qualifying at this weekend's Zone C Diving Championships, hosted by Ohio State University.
Alec Back, Jamie Bissett, Nate Cox, Steele Johnson and Sean Mokhtari will represent the Purdue men, Mary Beth Dunnichay, Samm Reese and MacKenzie Tweardy the Purdue women. Except for the freshmen Johnson and Reese, the rest are veterans of the Zone Diving Championships and most have competed at the high-level meet multiple times in their careers.
Seven of Purdue's nine divers on last year's roster qualified for NCAAs at Zones, as the Boilers claimed seven of the 17 berths available in Zone C. Bissett is a two-time NCAA Championships qualifier. Cox, Mokhtari and Tweardy all earned their first career NCAAs berths last season.
Action is set for Thursday through Saturday at OSU's McCorkle Aquatic Pavilion in Columbus, which is serving as the host site of Zone C for the second year in a row and fourth time since 2008.
The men's 1-meter and women's 3-meter competitions are scheduled for Thursday and vice versa on Friday. Both genders will compete from the platform towers Saturday. Action begins at 1 p.m. on Thursday and Friday, and 11 a.m. on Saturday. The top 18 finishers in the springboard prelims and the top 12 in the platform prelims advance to the championship rounds, from which the divers qualify for the NCAA Championships.
However, the qualification matrix was revamped for this season. The number of overall qualifying spots in each event was increased, but divers must now finish among the top 12 in an event to also be eligible to compete in it at NCAAs. Previously, once a diver qualified for NCAAs in any of the three diving events, he or she was eligible to compete in any event at NCAAs as long as he or she did so at Zones as well.
For the women, the top eight finishers on 1-meter and platform as well as the top nine finishers on 3-meter earn spots at the NCAA Championships. Men's berths are awarded to the top eight on 3-meter, the top six on platform and the top five on 1-meter.
Jamie Bissett recaps the Canadian Nationals & Big Tens Championships and previews Zones
Because there will be quite a bit of overlap among the top finishers in the three events, a reimbursement procedure and priority placement grid remains in place that awards berths to the next highest finishers outside the previously established auto-bid spots. Each Zone will receive a minimum four reimbursements for each gender.
There are five Zone meets around the country. Each Zone is allotted a different number of qualifying berths to the NCAA Championships. Zone C is expected to feature a large number of divers from the Big Ten Conference. Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska and Wisconsin are competing at the Zone D Championships and Rutgers is in Zone A, but the rest of the league's divers should be in Columbus.
The Zone C Championships will also feature divers from Kentucky, Louisville, Notre Dame as well as selected Horizon League, Mid-American and Missouri Valley Conference schools.
Unlike their swimmer counterparts, the divers have to perform well this weekend to qualify for the NCAA Championships. No other scores or results from regular-season competition are considered.
Buffalo (Zone A), Georgia (Zone B), Iowa (Zone D) and Air Force (Zone E) are also hosting Zone meets this week. Zone C is the final meet to get underway. Action at the four other Zones was Monday through Wednesday.
The Purdue divers have made numerous trips to the Columbus this season. The men and women competed at McCorkle for the Oct. 24 triple dual with Ohio State and Cincinnati, the Ohio State Invitational the weekend before Thanksgiving, and USA Diving Winter Nationals the week before Christmas. The women's Big Ten Championships were also held in Columbus last month.
All eight Purdue divers set to compete this week scored team points for the Boilermakers at the Big Ten Championships, helping the men finish fourth and the women fifth.
Johnson (51 team points) and Dunnichay (43) were the top individual scorers at Big Tens for the Purdue men and women, respectively. Johnson finished as the runner-up in the championship final of all three events to compile the top score by a Boiler at Big Tens since David Boudia swept the diving events in 2011. Bissett (39 team points) and Dunnichay also qualified for the championship final of all three events. Tweardy (34), Cox (30), Mokthari (18) scored in all three diving events as well.
At Zones last season, Bissett qualified for NCAAs with a runner-up finish on 3-meter Thursday. Cox, Mokhtari and Tweardy all earned their berths via the platform towers. Cox and Tweardy were the event winners and Mokhtari took second to Cox in the men's competition.
Ten Purdue swimmers -- seven women and three men -- have already learned they earned the right to represent the Boilermakers at the NCAA Championships. The men are expected to have their 200 medley relay team qualify for NCAAs as well if one male diver earns a berth to the national championship meet this week at Zones.