UCLA
Pac-10 Diving Championships
Tess Schofield: Pac-10 Platform Champion
February 11, 2007 | Swimming & Diving
Feb. 11, 2007
Sophomore Tess Schofield captured the Pac-10 Platform Diving title on Sunday, winning UCLA's first conference title of the meet with a score of 280.95. The divers stepped up as they have all season long and gave the rest of the No. 16-ranked Bruins a healthy first-place lead heading into the swimming portion of the Pac-10 Championships.
UCLA stands in first-place with 331 points. Stanford is in second with 250 points, followed by Arizona (179), USC (123), Cal (105) and Arizona State (80). The remainder of the meet will be held in Long Beach, CA at the Belmont Olympic Plaza Pool February 14-17.
"We did what we wanted to do," said dive coach Tom Stebbins. "We got our area win and had a great weekend doing it. Tess winning today is just awesome for her. She was great. She started off fourth or fifth, but really smoked it in the second round with her dive. She was a little shaky in her third dive, but maintained her lead. It was a close contest and for Tess to stand up there and come away with the win is impressive.
"We're happy to hand the baton off to swimming and see if they can run with it next weekend."
Schofield posted the highest score in the preliminary round, diving to a total of 286.50 points. Senior Sara Clark was 11th in the prelims (191.80), followed by sophomores Brittany Hill (12th, 187.00 points) and Marisa Samaniego (13th, 181.65 points), senior Amanda Blong (15th, 155.95 points) and sophomore Shannon Pirozzi (17th, 119.60 points).
The divers will be off of competition until the NCAA Zone E Championships, held March 1-3 in Oklahoma City, OK. The Zone meet is where divers qualify for the NCAA Swim & Dive Championships, which are hosted by Minnesota March 8-10.
