2020 Zone A: Pitt’s Read Wins, Virginia’s Porter Adds Event On Day 3

Though we’re not DiveDove, we do dabble in diving coverage, and as diving can have a major impact on the NCAA Swimming & Diving Championships, we cover NCAA Zone Diving – mainly through the lens of how national diving qualifiers could impact the team points battles later this month.

2020 NCAA ZONE DIVING

• Zones A, B, D, E: Monday, March 9 – Wednesday, March 13
• Zone C: Thursday, March 12 – Saturday, March 14
• Host schools, with live result links:
  • Zone A: West Virginia University (Results)
  • Zone B: University of Georgia (Results)
  • Zone C: University of Kentucky (Results)
  • Zone D: Southern Methodist University (Results)
  • Zone E: University of Utah (Results)
• Revisit our NCAA selection primer

Women:

Pitt sophomore Amy Read will make a return trip to NCAAs after winning platform diving at the Zone A Championships. Read was 36th on platform last year and 43rd on 3-meter, but will only contest platform this time around.

Only five women could earn invites on platform, but four of them hadn’t yet qualified for NCAAs this year. The only repeat qualifier was Hannah Montau out of Navy, who has now qualified in all three events. She’s the only three-event qualifier out of Zone A.

Virginia’s Jocelyn Porter was 6th, adding platform to her 3-meter invite. With Virginia among the top three teams expected to fight for the NCAA team title, the Cavaliers will have 3 divers at NCAAs, each qualified in two events, though none of the three are expected to score big.

Men:

There were only four platform spots up for grabs on the final day, but the Virginia and West Virginia men added divers with them. Walker Creedon won the event for Virginia. He competed at NCAAs last year as a freshman and was 23rd in this event, not far out of scoring.

West Virginia got Jacob Cardinal Tremblay and Nick Cover in with 3rd and 4th place showings. Second went to Virginia Tech’s Noah Zawadzki, who was already invited, but now becomes one of just three Zone A men to qualify in all three events. The other two are Princeton’s Charlie Minns and Colten Young.

Current Qualifiers

SIMPLIFIED INVITE PROCEDURES

You can read a more in-depth look at the selection process here. Effectively, each Zone earns a specific number of qualifying spots in each event, based on how that Zone performed at NCAAs last year. Divers who place inside the qualifying places earn an NCAA invite. A diver invited in one event can compete at NCAAs in any other diving event where they were top 12 in their Zone meet. The highest-placing divers earn NCAA reimbursement, while lower-placing qualifiers can compete at NCAAs, but their school must pay for their travel and lodging at the meet.