Live Scoring / Vote for Johnson for AAU Sullivan Award
MEET INFORMATION
Purdue Men & Women at Zone C Diving Championships
Thursday to Saturday, March 9 to 11 / 1 p.m., 1 p.m. and 11 a.m.
Counsilman-Billingsley Aquatics Center / Bloomington, Indiana
AUTOMATIC QUALIFYING SPOTS TO NCAA CHAMPIONSHIPS FROM ZONE C
Top 12 in an event also qualify for NCAAs if he or she has already auto-qualified
1-Meter - Women: 8 // Men: 5
3-Meter - Women: 9 // Men: 7
Platform - Women: 6 // Men 7
ZONE C SCHEDULE
Top 18 in springboard prelims, Top 12 in platform prelims advance to finals
Thursday at 1 p.m. - Men's 1-Meter, Women's 3-Meter
Friday at 1 p.m. - Women's 1-Meter, Men's 3-Meter
Saturday at 11 a.m. - Women's Platform, Men's Platform to follow
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Purdue's eight divers -- four men and four women -- aim to qualify for the NCAA Championships at this week's Zone C Championships, hosted by Indiana University.
Action is set for Thursday through Saturday at IU's Counsilman-Billingsley Aquatics Center. The springboard competitions begin at 1 p.m. Thursday and Friday and women's platform diving opens Saturday's action at 11 a.m. Thursday's schedule features the men competing on 1-meter and the women on 3-meter. They'll be on the opposite boards Friday. The men's platform competition follows the women's Saturday.
Emily Meaney, Morgan Meixner, Samm Reese and Lexi Vincent will represent the Purdue women. Joe Cifelli, Steele Johnson, Brandon Loschiavo and Max Showalter will compete for the Purdue men. As freshmen, Cifelli, Johnson, Showalter and Vincent all qualified for NCAAs at Zones. Loschiavo and Meaney are freshmen this season and represent the only two of the group that have not yet competed at IU's aquatics center during their collegiate careers.
Johnson is one of 18 semifinalists nationally for the Amateur Athletic Union's Sullivan Award, which has been award annually since 1930 to the top amateur athlete in the United States. Fans can vote for Johnson at AAUSullivan.org.
Indiana is hosting Zones for the first time since 2012. Coincidentally, that was the only year since 2004 that Purdue did not have at least one diver qualify for NCAAs.
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. Scores carry over from prelims to finals.
The qualification matrix was revamped two years ago. The number of overall qualifying spots is fluid based on how a Zone faired at NCAAs the previous year, 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.
Earning at least one automatic-qualifying finish is the key. For the women in Zone C, the top eight finishers on 1-meter, top nine on 3-meter and top six on the platforms earn spots to the NCAA Championships in those events. Men's berths are awarded to the top five on 1-meter, top seven on 3-meter and top seven on the platforms. The top 12 overall in each event remains the other notable portion of the leaderboard.
Johnson, Lochiavo, Meaney and Showalter are expected to compete in all three diving events. Cifelli, Meixner and Reese will concentrate on the springboard events. Vincent qualified for NCAAs on the platforms last season and will look to do so again this year.
Johnson qualified for NCAAs in all three diving at the 2015 Zone C Championships, winning on 3-meter. He went on to win national titles on 1-meter and platform. He exercised an Olympic practice waiver last season and did not compete in any collegiate meets. Cifelli (1-meter and 3-meter) and Showalter (3-meter and platform) both qualified for NCAAs in a pair of events with their performances at Zones a year ago. Vincent became Purdue's first female freshman diver to make it to NCAAs since 2009.
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 Bloomington.
The Zone C Championships will also feature divers from Cincinnati, Kentucky, Louisville, Notre Dame as well as selected Horizon and Summit 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.
Virginia Tech (Zone A), Auburn (Zone B), Missouri (Zone D) and Northern Arizona (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.
Vote NOW to make @Steele_Johnson your #AAUSullivanAward finalist choice. Vote 1x per day through 3/13.
VOTE: https://t.co/CvpsjU1zOz pic.twitter.com/8rSSyZ4izV-- AAU Aquatics (@AAUAquatics) March 8, 2017