Five Tigers Qualify for NCAA Championships on Day One of Diving Zones

MADISON, Wisc. – Five LSU divers competing at the NCAA Zone D diving regional in Madison, Wisc., have officially punched their tickets to their respective NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships held in Atlanta.

“Fantastic day one start for the LSU divers at the NCAA Zone D regional today,” head diving coach Doug Shaffer said. “We qualified three women and two men to their respective NCAA Championships with two more days to go of the competition. We will continue to focus on the competitive opportunities ahead, but it was a good start for the Tigers.”

Fifth-year senior started off his final postseason stint strong on three-meter, placing first in prelims with a score of 422.95. With the scores accumulating in the finals, Celaya-Hernandez closed out the three-meter competition with a meet-high score on the event of 903.00. His score was nearly 100 points higher than the next best diver.

Freshman Adrian Abadia competed at a very high level for his first chance at reaching the NCAA Championships. After placing second right behind Celaya-Hernandez in the prelims with a score of 418.25, he officially finished third with a score of 799.20.

On the women’s side, four Tigers qualified for the final on the one-meter springboard. Freshman Chiara Pellacani led the way, placing fifth in the prelims with a score of 306.60. Closely behind her, Helle Tuxen claimed seventh place with a score of 299.65 and Montserrat Gutierrez Lavenant finished in 11th place with a score of 284.05. The final LSU diver to qualify for the final was Anne Tuxen, who placed 15th with a score of 273.65.

Freshman Maggie Buckley narrowly missed competing in the final, claiming 21st place with a score of 258.20.

In the final, Pellacani claimed fourth place with a score of 613.15. Helle followed up in sixth place with a score of 603.50. Gutierrez Lavenant closed out the sensational day with an eighth-place finish and a score of 594.00. All three scores were good enough to send them to the 2022 NCAA Championships.

ORDER OF EVENTS

• Tuesday, March 8 (11 a.m. – 3p.m. CT)
  • Women’s 3M Prelims
  • Men’s 1M Prelim
  • 15 minutes in between sessions
  • Men’s 1M Final
  • Women’s 3M Final
• Wednesday, March 9 (11a.m. – 1:45 p.m. // 3:15p.m. – 6p.m. CT)
  • Women’s Platform prelim
  • Women’s platform final
  • Break for men’s warmups
  • Men’s platform prelim
  • Men’s platform final

LIVE VIDEO
The final two days can be streamed on bigtenplus.com with no paywall required to watch the action.

Day 2: lsul.su/3ChgXO8
Day 3: lsul.su/3tqUzhm

LIVE STATS
Diving results can be found on DiveMeets.com