The Massachusetts men’s and women’s diving teams presence was certainly felt at this weekend’s Bucknell Diving Invitational in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania.
Divers Maja Boric, Katie Polk, Emma Roush and Trent Kindvall all posted personal records en route to qualifying for the NCAA Zone A Regional meet. Several others posted personal bests in a productive weekend for UMass coach Mandy Hixon’s divers.
“Overall, it was great,” Hixon said. “Just a fantastic meet.”
Kindvall continues to be the most productive Minutemen diver. The junior from Westminster, Colorado won the three-meter dive on day one and came in second in the one-meter board on day two. His performance in the one-meter event earned him a spot in the regional NCAA tournament for the third consecutive year.
Kindvall’s score of 316.45 in the second day’s one-meter preliminary round topped the leaderboard and was a new personal best. It was also good for seventh-best in school history.
Hixon has enjoyed seeing Kindvall become a top swimmer in his little more than two years at UMass.
“He’s definitely grown, gotten stronger, become more consistent,” Hixon said. “It’s been really fun to watch.”
Boric won the one-meter dive on the first day with a score of 289.20, a new freshman record for UMass. Roush was hot on Boric’s heels with a score of 288.25.
In the men’s one-meter dive finals, Kindvall’s second place finish was followed by Nolan Burns in third and Reece Donahue in sixth.
The Minutemen and Minutewomen both excelled in the three-meter board finals. In the women’s dive, UMass’ Maja Boric, Katie Polk, Emma Roush and Julia Jagannath finished first through fourth. On the men’s board, Kindvall finished first, Robert Barry finished third and Donahue finished sixth.
Boric posted the second-best score in UMass women’s dive history with 320.55 points in the three-meter final. She surpassed Roush, who set the now-third all-time mark earlier in the day with 317.95. Boric’s day one victory on the one-meter board was also the third best mark in Minutewomen history for that event.
Polk, a sophomore, posted two of her three best all-time scores over the weekend. Her second place finish of 269.35 on the one-meter was her second best mark in the event and her 296.80 score in the three-meter on the final day was her best score ever. Both numbers helped propel her into eighth all-time in UMass women’s dive history.
Jagannath’s fourth-place score of 278.45 was her best as a Minutewomen. The senior was especially pleased with her team’s improvement up to and through the weekend.
“We really came in not knowing what to expect and we came out on top,” Jagannath said. “We’re really trying to transition our corrections in practice over to a meet which is usually pretty difficult, but at this meet we were really able to make a lot of the big changes that we’ve been working on. I think that’s how you get great diving, when those changes get turned into beating competition.”
Besides host Bucknell and UMass, other schools at the meet included Towson, Fordham, North Dakota, La Salle, Binghamton and Susquehanna.
The Minutemen and Minutewomen now have five weeks to rest leading up to an intense second-half season schedule. Their next event is the Buffalo Diving Invitational Jan. 13-15, followed by four more events over a two-week period. Hixon and her divers are excited for the time off but know they must stay sharp and in shape.
“The rest period is really important,” Hixon said. “It’s a little bit of a hard time because of heading into finals, so we’re going to spend the next few weeks going over fundamentals, doing some fun stuff. After finals the divers will just have to focus on staying fit.”
“While we go home for break, we really have to make sure we stay in shape,” Jagannath added. “We have to be able to keep going and continue our progression.”
Henry Brechter can be reached at [email protected].
Cam M • Dec 6, 2016 at 12:39 pm
Very well written Henry. I always enjoy your articles