BATON ROUGE, La. — After one of the most successful SEC Championships in program history, seven members of the LSU diving team look to punch their tickets to NCAA Championships at Zone D Diving Regionals. Qualifying takes place March 9-11 in Iowa City, Iowa.
“We started preparing for this meet on the first day of practice,” diving coach Doug Shaffer said. “We’ve been training and looking forward to this part of the season. At the end of the day we are doing the same lists we’ve done all year.”
LSU made a statement at the 2015 SEC Championships. The Tiger divers collected six medals and set three school records at the meet. Senior Alex Bettridge was named SEC Female Diver of the Meet and earned the most points by any LSU swimmer or diver in conference championship history.
Bettridge earned gold on one-meter, silver on three-meter and bronze on platform at SEC’s. The Austin, Texas native set the school record one-meter as well as the second-highest scores in school history on three-meter and platform. Bettridge looks to qualify for NCAA’s after earning Honorable Mention All-American honors her freshman year.
Daniel Helm earned silver on platform and one-meter at SEC’s. The senior set the school record on one-meter and the second-highest score in school history on platform. Helm heads back to NCAA’s for the first time since earning Honorable Mention All American honors his sophomore year.
Cassie Weil won platform at SEC’s and earned First-Team All American honors at NCAA Championships last season. Weil blew away the school record on platform this season and owns the seventh-best one-meter score in school history.
“We have a lot of confidence after our conference championships. The pressure or anxiety is normal and it gets the adrenaline flowing. Our focus is to keep it in perspective and just have fun,” Shaffer added.
The first day of competition begins Monday with the women’s three-meter springboard at 11 a.m. and the men’s three-meter springboard at 5:45 p.m. Finals begin 15 minutes after the prelims.
The Zone ‘D’ region consists of divers from LSU, Minnesota, SMU, Missouri, Texas A&M, Houston, Nebraska, Iowa State, Wisconsin, North Dakota, Iowa, Kansas, Northern Iowa, Texas, Arkansas, South Dakota State, and Tulane.
Live results of the three-day qualifier will be available on divemeets.com
A full recap will be available on lsusports.net at the conclusion of each day. For more information and updates on LSU Swimming and Diving please visit LSUsports.net, ‘like’ us on Facebook at LSU Swimming and Diving or follow us on Twitter @LSUswimdive.
Schedule Of Events:
Monday, March 9
11 a.m. Women’s 3-meter
5:45 p.m. Men’s 1-meter
Tuesday, March 10
11 a.m. Men’s 1-meter
5:45 p.m. Women’s 3-meter
Wednesday, March 11
11 a.m. Women’s Platform
3 p.m. Men’s Platform
* 15 minutes will be allotted between preliminaries and finals