March 15, 2009
It was a successful weekend for the Texas A&M men's diving team which qualified a school-record three divers to the NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships at the Zone D Qualifier at the University of Missouri Aquatic Center.
"The divers did a great job of rising to the challenge this weekend," Aggie diving coach Kevin Wright said. "The competition was really difficult and we knew it would be. We had been focusing on this meet the entire school year, so I'm extremely pleased with the way the divers responded."
Qualifying for the Aggies were senior Eric Sehn and freshmen Grant Nel and Cam McLean, which gives the Texas A&M swimming and diving team 10 total qualifiers to the NCAA Championships. The men's national meet will be contested in College Station March 26-28. The 10 qualifiers ranks as the second-most in school history behind the 2001 squad that sent 11 competitors to NCAA Championships, which were also in College Station.
On Sunday, Sehn won his second competition of the weekend with a victory in the platform. Sehn dove to a 12-dive total of 861.65 points, which edged Texas' Matt Cooper (854.65) and guaranteed McLean of a qualifying spot. A victory by Cooper on the platform would have pushed McLean out of an NCAA berth. McLean's third-place finish on the one-meter on Friday turned out to be his ticket to the NCAA meet. Nel's qualifier was his runner-up effort on the three-meter springboard on Saturday.
Men Platform Championship (Final) Place Diver Total 1 Eric Sehn (Texas A&M) 861.15 2 Matthew Cooper (Texas) 854.65 3 Greg DeStephen (Missouri) 670.45 4 Matt Culbertson (SMU) 657.20 5 Dante Jones (Missouri) 649.30 6 Drew Livingston (Texas) 626.70 7 Raymond Hesselberg (TCU) 593.80 8 Mike Wong (Texas) 591.60 9 Jonathan Wilcox (Texas) 576.16 10 Grant Nel (Texas A&M) 437.50