Utah Dive Ready for Air Force Diving Invite
SALT LAKE CITY– The Utah Diving team will be back in action over the weekend when they travel to Colorado Springs, Colo., to compete in the Air Force Diving Invitational, Feb. 3-5. Competition will begin on Thursday morning and will conclude Saturday night with the men's platform finals.
"We're looking to have a bit of a bounce back meet and the Air Force Invite has traditionally been a very good competition for us," head coach Richard Marschner said. "We have a really strong group that I believe should be able to win the team competition on both the men's and women's sides."
Meet Info
In what has turned into an annual meet for the diving team, the Utes will return to Cadet Natatorium for the ninth time in 10 seasons for a final tune up before the Pac-12 Diving Championships. The men's field consists of 32 divers representing seven schools and the women's field consists of 40 divers representing eight schools.
Schools that will be competing include: Air Force, BYU, California Baptist, Colorado State, Denver, Texas A&M and Wyoming.
A new team event will be introduced at the invitational which has been run at the Tennessee Invite and UCLA Invite earlier this month. The team event consists of 3 divers from each team doing two dives for a total of six dives per team. Within the six dives, two must be done on each event of 1M, 3M and platform. Each team must do one dive from each category (front, back, reverse, inward, twist and armstand).
The scores are combined at the conclusion of the team event for one final score.
Last Time Out
Senior Tony Chen swept the diving events over the weekend winning the 3M on Saturday (356.10) and taking home the victory in the 1M on Friday with a score of 337.50, his second highest score of the season.
Luke McDivitt finished in third (333.30) on the 3M and second on the 1M (303.98) as Jenner Pennock (294.38) followed in third. Pennock's score of 294.38 tops his previous season best of 283.95 he set last month at Princeton.
On the women's side, junior Lizzy DeCecco earned a score of 269.40 to place second on the 3M dive while senior Lexi Mills (267.98) finished in third. Freshman Holly Waxman capped off the Utah divers in fifth, earning a score of 258.38.
Freshman Holly Waxman led the women of Utah on Saturday grabbing second with a score of 283.13 in the 1M. Lizzy DeCecco and Lexi Mills followed in third and fourth, respectively.
Up Next
The women's swim and dive team won't see any more competition until the Pac-12 Championships, Feb. 23-26, while the men's team will have one more dual-meet on Saturday, Feb. 12, against USC. That meet is set to start at 12:00 pm on Saturday.
Pac-12 Women's Diver of the Month
Junior diver Lexi Mills was named Pac-12 Diver of the Month for December after a stellar performance at the Big Al Invitational. Hosted by Princeton, Mills never placed outside the top-seven in the events she competed in. Starting with the 3M dive on the opening day, Mills posted a score of 293.20 in the preliminary round to advance to the finals and followed that up with a 303.25 (NCAA Zones qualifying score) to lead the Utes placing second.
On day two, Mills posted a score of 271.50 in the 1M dive prelims and scored a 250.85 in the finals to finish seventh. The 271.50 she showcased in the prelims was also an NCAA Zones qualifying mark. The platform was the final event on the third day at the invitational and Mills posted a personal-best of 216.30, which was good for seventh.
Waxman's All-Time Performances
In her first year at Utah, freshman Holly Waxman has already added her name in the all-time record book. Hailing from Leeds, England, Waxman currently sits in ninth all-time in the Platform scoring a 227.30 at the Texas Diving Invite last fall and is seventh in the 1M after her performance on senior day posting a score of 298.85.
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