The Badger Herald

SPORTS

UW divers look to make splash at Zone Championships

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Also by Frank Otto:

Swim team to Big Tens (February 28, 2008)
Big Ten Championships awaits (February 21, 2008)
Badgers get wet in home opener (October 11, 2007)
Tennis travels to Evanston for Northwestern Invite (October 5, 2007)
Wisconsin tennis faces tough tests at Furman (September 28, 2007)

by Frank Otto

Friday, March 14, 2008

With the Zone Diving Championships coming up for Wisconsin’s men’s and women’s diving teams, Madison’s divers are not taking practices lightly.

“(There’s) definitely a sense of urgency,” freshman diver Caleb Percevecz said.

Following the competition on both the men’s and women’s sides at the Big Ten Championships in Ann Arbor, Mich. and Columbus, Ohio, respectively, the divers move on to their own form of NCAA qualifiers this Thursday, Friday and Saturday.Wisconsin will be taking four men and three women to the Zone Championships.

Unlike swimming, in which all events are timed in their various disciplines, divers receive scores in three events: the one-meter, three-meter and platform diving competitions. Whereas at the Big Ten Championships, swimmers received “A” times for automatic berths in the NCAA Championships and “B” times for consideration for the NCAA Championships, at the Zone Championships divers will compete in all three events and need to receive a high enough score in order to qualify for the overall NCAA Championships.

Needless to say, stakes are high, as all of the year’s work comes down to one competition at the McCorkle Aquatic Pavilion in Columbus, Ohio.

The zone Wisconsin will compete in contains schools from all of the Big Ten — except Penn State — and Mid-American Conference schools, Independent schools — including Notre Dame — and the Horizon League schools.

The Badgers’ seven top divers will be competing against a wide field, but some of the competition within the Big Ten has already been scoped out.

“Ninety percent of our competition was at Big Tens,” Percevecz said.“Now, there’s a few people unknown, a few teams or whatever, but, I mean, most of our competition we saw.We know what’s out there.”

“It was good to see what was out there and what we’ll be seeing at Zone,” sophomore Emily Cheffins added.

Cheffins and Percevecz lead a young team to Ohio State. In a press conference Feb. 18 swimming coach Eric Hansen said that he would like “to increase our production in diving in the next couple of years.”With Cheffins and Percevecz, UW has a solid base to build upon for those next couple of years.Both are in their first years in the Big Ten and have contributed greatly to the team.

Cheffins — whose personal bests include a 311.70 in the three-meter event and a 289.73 in the one-meter event — is also joined in the youth movement by freshman diver Ciara Rinaudo, who finished first in the one-meter event versus UW-Green Bay and won the three-meter event against UW-Milwaukee. Percevecz also collected a key victory in the one-meter event versus Iowa and also won the event in the meets against UW-Green Bay and UW-Milwaukee.

At this point in the season, the divers have learned and performed all of their dives already and just used the few practices left to hone their skills.

“All of our really hard work is behind us,” Cheffins said. “We’re pretty much maintaining, more preparing mentally.”

“We’ve trained (the dives), so it’s just about hitting them,” Percevecz said.

The Badgers travel to Columbus on Wednesday, territory the women’s team is familiar with.According to coach Tom Michael, having been at that pool and used the platform there should be something of an advantage.Nonetheless, competition looks to be fierce, as Wisconsin rides into Ohio State as heavy underdogs.

“I’m hoping (all the divers) are gonna step up,” Michael said.“You gotta be on your game.”

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