Rebecca Hamperian Punches Ticket to NCAA Championships

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – Senior diver Rebecca Hamperian is headed to her third consecutive NCAA Championships after qualifying on the 3-meter springboard at the Zone C Diving Championships on Thursday afternoon. Hamperian was one of four Kentucky divers to compete in the finals on the day, but was the lone Wildcat to earn an automatic bid to the national meet.

 “I was a little nervous in the first couple dives, but I did what I needed to do and I got into NCAAs,” said Hamperian. “Zones is a super stressful meet, and going in you kind of have to calm yourself down and realize that you’ve put in all the work. Now the stressful part is out of the way and I can just focus on getting my other events qualified too.”

Hamperian was joined in the 3-meter finals by sophomores Courtney Clark and Kailey Francetic as all three finished in the top 18 of the prelims.

“That was Kailey’s first NCAA qualifier final and she was really amped up about that,” added Hamperian.  “And then going right after Courtney, it felt just like practice. It was awesome that the three of us were in there.”

Heading into the final, Hamperian sat in eighth with a prelims score of 293.60, while Clark was in 12th and Francetic in 18th. Ultimately, the senior posted a cumulative score of 596.30 to finish seventh overall. In order to automatically qualify for the NCAA Championships in the discipline, divers needed to finish in the top nine.

With her performance today, Hamperian becomes the tenth Wildcat woman to qualify for this year’s NCAAs, as nine swimmers were announced as qualifiers last week.

On the men’s side, sophomore Seb Masterton advanced to the finals on the 1-meter springboard, finishing eighth overall with a cumulative score of 634.55. The 1-meter is the most difficult discipline to automatically qualify for the men, as the athletes needed to finish inside the top five to automatically advance.

The Zone C Diving Championships will continue tomorrow at 1 p.m. ET.  The divers will switch springboards, with the women competing on the 1-meter and the men on the 3-meter.  Live results are available here.

7. Rebecca Hamperian – 596.30

15. Courtney Clark – 546.65

17. Kailey Francetic – 523.60

8. Rebecca Hamperian – 293.60

12. Courtney Clark – 281.40

18. Kailey Francetic – 260.00

41. Emma Dellmore – 216.75

8. Sebastian Masterton – 634.55

7. Sebastian Masterton – 326.00

20. Kevin Frebel – 259.10

23. Noah Richter – 252.00

31. Stephen Jou – 207.25

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