Though we’re not DiveDove, we do dabble in diving coverage, and as diving can have a major impact on the NCAA Swimming & Diving Championships, we cover NCAA Zone Diving – mainly through the lens of how national diving qualifiers could impact the team points battles later this month.

2019 NCAA ZONE DIVING

The Stanford women qualified two more divers for NCAAs, bringing them to 4 total invited divers and leaving them with some tough roster decisions to make.

Freshman Daria Lenz took fourth on 1-meter today to earn an NCAA bid. Meanwhile freshman Carolina Sculti was fifth – she already qualified through 3-meter yesterday. And junior Haley Farnsworth added her own NCAA bid with the final qualifying spot in Zone E, 8th place.

Stanford also has Mia Paulsen qualified – she was the final qualifier after taking 8th on 3-meter yesterday. Stanford already qualified 18 swimmers to the NCAA meet, and can only bring 18 total athletes, with divers counting as half a roster spot each. It appears Stanford will have to cut either two swimmers or one swimmer and two divers from their NCAA roster to stay under the cap.

UCLA’s Maria Polyakova won again today. In fact, it was a UCLA 1-2, with Eloise Belanger second. The only new NCAA qualifiers for the women were Lenz, Farnsworth and Cal’s Phoebe Lamay, who was 7th on 1-meter.

Also of note: Arizona State’s Frida Kaellgren missed the invite spot by nine points. She was 5th in the nation on 1-meter last year as a freshman, but won’t make a return trip this year as she is not entered on platform and missed the cut the past two days.

Men’s recap

The Stanford men added their second NCAA-qualifying freshman diver, with Noah Vigran taking second on 3-meter at the Zone E Championships.

Vigran was second and fellow Stanford rookie Conor Casey third. Casey had already qualified after winning 1-meter yesterday. The pair could be in line to score some much-needed NCAA points for the Cardinal this year, though it’s hard to nail down how tough this zone is. It’s a changing of the guard in Zone E on the men’s side – most of the top finishers from 2018 have graduated, including USC’s Dash Enos and Stanford’s Theodore Miclau and Tarek Abdelghany.

Arizona State’s Youssef Selim rose up to win the men’s 3-meter. He was second on 1-meter to Casey yesterday. The two Stanford divers went 2-3, with UNLV’s Tazman Abramowicz also adding an NCAA invite today.

Current Qualifiers

Simplified Qualifying Procedures

Each zone earns a certain number of NCAA qualifying spots based on how that zone has performed at NCAAs in the past. Each of the three diving events will have its own number of qualifiers from each zone.

If a diver is invited in one event, they can compete at NCAAs in any other event where they finish top 12 in their zone.

Reimbursement vs invited slots don’t mean much from a spectator perspective – both can compete at NCAAs. Reimbursement slots earn NCAA reimbursement to cover the athlete’s trip to NCAAs, while invited athletes are eligible to compete, but would have to travel to the meet on the school’s dime.

Here are the qualifying allotments per zone and the reimbursement spots per zone:

QUALIFYING SPOTS PER ZONE

WOMEN’S 1M 3M PLATFORM MEN’S 1M 3M PLATFORM Zone A 6 5 5 Zone A 6 5 4 Zone B 9 8 6 Zone B 6 7 9 Zone C 9 8 12 Zone C 11 8 8 Zone D 9 12 9 Zone D 9 11 9 Zone E 8 8 9 Zone E 4 5 6

Reimbursement Spots Per Zone