Courtesy: Tennessee Athletics
KNOXVILLE, Tenn – Bryden Hattie won his second event of the week on the final day of the Tennessee Diving Invite on Friday at Allan Jones Intercollegiate Aquatic Center
“As I look back on it all, I feel like there were way, way more positives than there were negatives”, diving coach Dave Parrington said. “There are always going to be a few negatives and things that we need to work on, which is why we do these meets. As a whole, I’m very proud of the team and looking forward to moving forward as we go into a more crucial part of the season.”
The 2023 SEC Diver of the Year earned a victory on platform with a mark of 479.20. Hattie’s performance was highlighted by a Back 2 1/2 Somersault 1 1/2 Twist Pike for a score of 86.40 on his final dive of the meet. Three of his attempts netted 80-plus points, and his average score for his list was 8.58 points.
Nick Stone tallied a score of 334.40, good for a third-place finish for the 2023 SEC Freshman Diver of the Year. Jacob Reasor placed sixth while tallying a score of 322.50. Harper Thornett (310.60) and Owen Redfearn (265.00) placed 12th and 18th, respectively.
“Another great win for Bryden Hattie“, Parrington said. “Put together another stellar platform list. He went 479 and I can’t remember what he went in the invite, the last invite was right in that vicinity. It’s good to see that type of consistency, pretty sharp. Good to see Nick Stone jump up there in third place, he was a little under the weather and missed the one dive, but very nice. Very exciting to see both Harper and Jacob get their NCAA Zone qualifying scores. Jacob has been out for a while, so he needed that meet. Owen did some good things, but a little bit off the game today, but still proud of him. A really strong platform performance that I was excited to see. The amount of platform events that we get to compete in are pretty limited, so we have to really take advantage of every one of those opportunities, and I felt like we did that today.”
On 1-meter, Lucoe advanced to the finals with a score of 253.95 in prelims after battling back from an early deficit in the event. She finished in 11th place during finals, scoring 267.35. She tallied finals appearances in all three events this week. Maddie Reese tallied a mark of 210.20 in prelims.
“Both Tanesha and Maddie were a little bit off today, particularly Maddie, but we’ll work on that”, Parrington said. “Tanesha a little bit in the prelims, she’s a little rusty coming off the illness, as I might have mentioned yesterday. Snuck her way into the final and had a solid day as it turned out and made some real positive strides.”
Up next, Tennessee will open their spring dual season on the road against Georgia. The meet is set to begin at noon on Jan. 20.