Colorado Springs, Colo. (Feb. 6, 2020) – The Cowgirl and Cowboy diving squads opened up its first of three days of competition on Thursday at the Air Force Diving Invite. The men competed in the 3-meter while the women started off in the 1-meter.
In a different format from previous meets, all the competitors participated in the preliminaries of the event. That was cut down to the top 12 finishers with places 1-4 getting a bye from the next round. In the second round, places 5-12 competed in two groups with the top 2 advancing to the quarterfinals. In group C, places 1 and 4 plus the top 2 from group A competed with the top 2 moving on to the semifinals, while in group D, places 2 and 3 along with the top 2 from group B. For the semifinals, the top two from each group competed against each other with the final two divers facing off in the finals to determine a winner. This will be used during Thursday and Friday's competition, while the platform will be preliminaries and finals.
For the Cowgirls, freshman Melissa Mirafuentes led all divers in first with a score of 305.45 in the preliminaries, followed by redshirt junior Karla Contreras in second with a mark of 285.65. The pair would earn a bye to the quarterfinals. Sophomore McKenna Houlihan would also make the cut with a score of 251.00 to finish in 11th. Senior Abigail Zoromski was just out of the top 12 with a mark of 242.10.
In the following two rounds, Mirafuentes and Contreras led their quarterfinal groups with scores of 302.95 and 290.90, respectively. Houlihan placed second in group D with a score of 254.54 to advance.
"Our women were the class of the competition to place 1,2 and 4 on the 1-meter," head diving coach Ted Everett said. "McKenna (Houlihan) earned a NCAA Zone E qualifying mark for the first time this season which is a great accomplishment."
The finals featured three Cowgirls in the top four. Mirafuentes placed first with a final score of 298.60 followed by Contreras with a mark of 293.05. Houlihan qualified for the NCAA Zone E meet with a mark of 270.05
On the men's side, the Cowboys were paced by sophomore Brendan Byrnes. He placed eighth in the prelims with a score of 291.05. He moved on to the second round of the competition. Junior Elijah Chan recorded a mark of 259.90 to place 13th just out of the next round, while freshman Payton Lee was 18th with a score of 238.80.
"The men had a solid performance against a strong field. Brendan (Byrnes) moved out of the prelims and Eli (Chan) just missed a spot."
The Cowboys will be competing tomorrow in the 1-meter while the women are in action on the 3-meter. The meet is scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. MT in Colorado Springs.
