After a few days of competition in the Zone D Diving Championships, the Texas A&M men’s and women’s teams qualified three divers for the NCAA Championships.
The Zone D Diving Championships, held in Columbia Missouri, saw two of the men’s divers qualify and one of the women qualify. The women will compete in the NCAA Championships March 15-18 while the men’s competition will be held March 22-25.
On the men’s side, junior Tyler Henschel and sophomore Sam Thornton punched their tickets to Indianapolis by taking second and third on the one-meter dive. Both divers, who will head to the NCAA Championships for the second-straight year, were neck-in-neck with their scores — Henschel posted a score of 761.05, with his teammate Thornton earning 756.50.
After qualifying on the one-meter, Henschel won the platform dive with a score of 934.90 and broke the previous school record twice. With a preliminary dive of 466.60 and a final dive of 468.30, Henschel broke the previous record of 452.35 set by Grant Nel at the 2011 SEC Championships.
For the women, sophomore Alais Kalonji earned her spot at the NCAA Championships for the second-straight year by finishing as the runner-up on the platform dive. Kalonji secured second with a score of 545.00.
All three divers will compete in their respective 2017 NCAA Championships in Indianapolis, Indiana. The three qualifying divers will be accompanied by the four men and 13 women who qualified for the NCAA Championships on the swim team.
