March 12, 2011
LEXINGTON, Ky. – One day after freshman diver Greg Ferrucci earned a spot in the NCAA Men’s Swimming and Diving National Championships, senior diver Lisa Faulkner earned a spot in the NCAA Women’s Swimming and Diving National Championships.
Faulkner nailed her final dives on the women’s one-meter board Friday and earned a place in the women’s NCAA championships held at the University of Texas at Austin, Texas from March 17-19. Faulkner scored a 296.35 in the preliminaries to enter the finals in fifth place. The senior from Midlothian, Va., fought hard in the finals and remained in fifth place and earned a spot in the championships.
“Lisa was fantastic,” UK head coach Ted Hautau said. “She had a good preliminary, but there were a lot of girls bunched together. The meet was very close at the finish and she had to absolutely nail her final dive to get fifth place. In the end, it was the difference between making the NCAA Championships and missing out. I’m really proud of her.”
Also competing well for the Cats was the freshman tandem of Ferrucci and Zack Peterson. Ferrucci scored a 379.10 in the preliminaries to enter the finals in fifth place. In the finals, Ferrucci scored a 357.1 to finish with a cumulative score of 736.20 and finish in seventh place.
Peterson recorded a 275.60 in the preliminaries to finish in 25th place in the zone.
“Overall I thought we had a good day two,” Hautau said. “Greg was solid on the three-meter board. He was consistent and stayed very level headed. Zack was calm again. He is still making the transition from gymnastics to diving as far as timing and mechanics go, but he is showing that he already knows how to handle pressure and he dove a really good meet today.”
By earning a spot in the NCAA championships on the one-meter board, Faulkner has automatically qualified to compete on the three-meter and platform as well.
On Saturday, the meet’s final day of competition, the men and women will dive from the platform.
In diving zones, the divers will complete their first list of dives and then be trimmed down to the top 18. As opposed to other meets, in zones the divers’ initial score after their first list of dives will not go back to zero. Instead, the divers will continue to add on to their first list of dives for a cumulative final score.
Check out UKathletics.com for all results from the Zone C Diving Championships and all UK swimming and diving news.
Zone C Diving Championships
Columbus, Ohio
March 10-12, 2011
Day Two
Women’s One-Meter
5. Lisa Faulkner 296.35 (Preliminaries) 581.15 (Finals)
Men’s Three-Meter
7. Greg Ferrucci 379.10 (Preliminaries) 736.20 (Finals)
25. Zack Peterson 275.65 (Preliminaries)
