Rubadue, Grisell Win Platform Titles To Close 2016 Zone B Champs

Tennessee’s Rachel Rubadue and Florida State’s Dylan Grisell won platform titles to prevent sweeps by Kahlia Warner and Mauricio Robles on the final night of the 2016 Zone B Championships.

Full results

Rubadue, who had already qualified for NCAAs through both springboard events, won the platform dive to stop Florida’s Warner from completing a three-event sweep. Warner finished 6th overall.

Rubadue should provide a solid boost to Tennessee’s NCAA roster after taking 1st on platform, 3rd on 3-meter and 8th on 1-meter at Zones.

Meanwhile Florida State’s Grisell won the men’s platform, beating 1-meter and 3-meter champ Robles of Tennessee, who was 3rd. It was a solid final night for FSU, with Cassidy Gebhart adding a last-minute NCAA berth as well.

In terms of the top programs in the NCAA team race, Alabama added another male diver in Dylan Marin, though he’ll be hard-pressed to score at NCAAs after taking 7th on platform in the zone.

The final qualifying lists are below. 8 women and 9 men will earn NCAA reimbursement, and the rest of the names are eligible to compete at NCAAs on their school’s dime.*

*The full NCAA selection procedures are spelled out at the bottom of this story.

(Athletes in bold are locked in for NCAA reimbursement. Athletes who have doubled up on qualifying spots are noted with a line through their lower priority slot.)

NCAA ZONE QUALIFYING PROCEDURES

From our refresher post, which you can find here.

Divers qualify for the NCAA Championships through Zone Meets spread across the country. Each zone earns a set number of NCAA qualifying spots based on the performances of that Zone at NCAAs in the past.

Here are the qualifying spots for each event in each zone:

Women

Men

Any diver who finishes within the qualifying spots for their zone earns eligibility for the NCAA Championships. Any diver who earns eligibility in one event can compete in any of the other two events at NCAAs, provided they finished inside the top 12 in their zone in that event.

The final wrinkle is a new rule from last season that makes a distinction between “eligible” athletes and “reimbursed” athletes. The NCAA loosened its rules last season to allow more divers into the meet, but divers qualifying under the new rules do not recieve reimbursement from the NCAA for their travel, lodging and meet expenses – that means it’s up to the individual school to decide if they will foot the bill themselves to allow the diver to compete at NCAAs.

Each zone has a set number of reimbursement spots between the three events combined:

The spots are determined by a priority chart. The winners of each event have first priority, starting with the 3-meter champ, then the 1-meter champ, then the platform champ. After that, the runners-up are added in the same order. If an athlete wins both 1-meter and 3-meter, they still only take one reimbursement slot, meaning the NCAA will keep adding rows of this chart until the reimbursement quota for that zone is met.