Utah’s Divers Visit Austin for Texas Diving Invitational
SALT LAKE CITY – The first invitational of the year for the University of Utah diving team is almost here, as the 2022 Texas Diving Invitational, hosted by the University of Texas, is scheduled to being on Wednesday and will conclude on Saturday inside the Lee and Joe Jamail Texas Swimming Center in Austin, Texas.
One year ago, the Utes traveled to Austin to compete in this meet for the first time and, after a challenging first day, Utah's divers closed out the meet with a pair of excellent showings. Luke McDivitt collected two top 10 finishes, including a third-place performance in the platform and teammate Ben Smyth was right behind him, snagging fourth. On the women's side, Lizzy DeCecco posted a score of 264.00 in the 1m to place 10th, while Holly Waxman was only a few spots behind her in 13th. Waxman also posted Utah's top score on the platform.
"We're really excited," said diving coach Richard Marschner. "This is the first major meet of the season and its definitely the best regular season meet as far as quality of competition for diving. Its an opportunity to go against really the best in the country. If you make finals here, its akin to scoring at NCAAs. We're really excited to see where we're at and get going."
The Utes will be competing with some of the best programs in the nation, as the rest of the field consists of Texas A&M, Stanford, Arizona, Notre Dame, LSU and Texas.
The list of events on the docket includes a team competition for both the men and women on Wednesday. Three divers per school per gender will compete, with each student-athlete performing two dives and at least two dives must be attempted from the 1m, 3m and platform. Each team must execute at least one dive of every category and the sum of the scores for all six dives will serve as the team score.
How to Keep Up
Coverage of the event will be provided each day by the Longhorn Network, with the first opportunity to tune in coming on Wednesday at 8 p.m. MT. Fans can catch an hour of action on Thursday starting at 4 p.m., followed by a second hour of coverage that will begin at 5:30 p.m. The meet will be back on the Longhorn Network throughout the day on Friday, starting at 6 a.m., and the first opportunity to catch the Utes on Saturday will be at 7 a.m.
Last Time Out
The last competition for the Utes was on Nov. 4 at home against UNLV and resulted in Utah's first victory of the year by a combined score of 389-206. The team's divers played a prominent role in that triumph, winning all four events and putting together one of their best performances so far in the 2022-23 campaign.
The list of personal-bests for the Utes during the meet included Ben Smyth's score of 327.23 on the 1m, which was good enough for first place. The best women's 1m score belonged to Holly Waxman, with a mark of 297.38 and that was followed by a Kathryn Grant, who posted a personal-best of 285.83, and Lexi Mills score of 270.08. All four marks counted as NCAA Qualifying scores.
The Utes continued their strong showing in the 3m, where Lizzy DeCecco's mark of 307.13 earned her the top spot. Another personal-best from Grant, who tallied a 302.18, put her in second place and Waxman took home third, grading out at 289.05. The men's 3m was again led by Smyth, who posted another personal-best at 355.20, with second and third going to teammates Luke McDivitt and Jenner Pennock, respectively.
Looking Ahead
The next event on Utah's schedule is Princeton's Big Al Invitational, which is set for Dec. 2-4 at the DeNunzio Pool in Princeton, N.J.
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