March 27, 2013
INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. – Kentucky junior divers Greg Ferrucci and John Fox will begin competition at the 2013 Men’s NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships Thursday at the IU Natatorium in Indianapolis, Ind. Ferrucci will look to build off experience from competing at the championships for his third consecutive season while Fox is making his NCAA Championships debut.
Ferrucci and Fox will be the lone Kentucky men’s representatives at the NCAA Championships this weekend after each qualified at the Zone C Diving Championships at Purdue in mid-March.
“”We are excited to get the NCAA Championships kicked off tomorrow,” said UK dive coach Ted Hautau. “This is a great venue for a diving competition and we are looking forward to the opportunity to compete against the best divers in the country.”
On each of the first two days of the zone qualifier, UK put Wildcats into the NCAAs. Ferrucci got things going winning the 1-meter springboard competition with a 12-dive score of 825.75 to earn the automatic bid. On day two, Ferrucci also captured the 3-meter springboard title, breaking program records with both his preliminary and final six-dive scores of 434.85 and 453.2 to give him the 12-dive final tally of 888.05.
Fox also earned his bid in that same 3-meter event, grabbing fourth place with a 761.95 combined score to send him to his first-career NCAA Championships.
On day three of the qualifier, divers took to the platform with the top-two unqualified divers earning bids. Ferrucci had a chance to sweep the weekend as he stood in second place with a 419.50 after preliminaries. However, a mutual decision between he and Hautau was made to let Ferrucci take rest in the finals.
Last season at the NCAAs, Ferrucci earned three top-15 finishes including 10th place on the 3-meter board. As a freshman in his first NCAA Championships, Ferrucci was limited to the 1-meter springboard hampered with a quad injury that held him out of 3-meter and platform diving.
Ferrucci and Fox will be competing in all three events this weekend, with action set for the 1-meter springboard to begin in the first session on day one in Indianapolis. If Ferrucci and/or Fox place in the top 16 in the preliminaries, they will dive in the finals which are set for the fifth event of Thursday’s finals which begins at 7 p.m.
“Both Greg and John have put in a lot of good work through the season and have competed in some tough meets so they are well seasoned and prepared for this meet,” said Hautau. “We are looking forward to the challenge. It will be a fun meet.”
