ATHENS, Ga. — Junior diver Hali Saucier qualified and placed 10th in the 1-meter springboard finals of the Georgia Invitational on Friday at the Gabrielsen Natatorium.
Saucier, a native of Gig Harbor, Wash., placed 12th in the preliminaries with a score of 232.55 to earn the last spot of the 1-meter finals. She then improved on her score to take 10th with a finals’ score of 241.75.
Freshman Alyson Thomas took 17th in her first invitational. Thomas dove a prelim mark of 219.35, while teammate Paige Brown finished 27th at 194.00. Ryanne Snyder scored right behind Brown with a 28th-place score of 192.70.
On the men’s side, sophomore Niko Dalman just missed qualifying for the 3-meter finals. Dalman was 13th in his preliminary run of 273.50. Nathan Schreiber and Andrew Keane placed 14th and 15th, respectively with scores of 271.35 and 248.20. Georgia’s Chris Colwill won the event with a final mark of 396.60.
“We struggled a bit today but never gave up,” said diving coach Doug Shaffer. “We had some individual dives that were the best we have seen but still not a complete list of dives.”
The Tigers were able to take away some positives, though. Thanks to the men’s finishes, LSU was able to place 1-2-3 in the men’s point totals toward Saturday’s swim dual versus Kentucky and Alabama.
“Hopefully, we will fare better tomorrow,” added Shaffer. “In 2003, the national champion LSU football team had its bump in the road against Florida. We believe this was ours, and we can move forward now to the next day.”
The Georgia Invitational continues at 11 a.m. Saturday with the prelims of the men’s 1-meter and women’s 3-meter. Finals get underway at 1:15 p.m.