LOS ANGELES – A quartet of UCLA divers are set to take part in the 2019 NCAA Zone E Championships, scheduled to run next Monday, Mar. 11 to Wednesday, Mar. 13 at the Wall Aquatic Center in Flagstaff, Ariz. on the campus of Northern Arizona University.
Live results for all events can be found on DiveMeets.com.
UCLA's group is headlined by seniors Eloise Belanger and Maria Polyakova. Belanger qualified for all three events at Zones with a standout season debut performance at the Bruin Diving Invitational in January, and Polyakova is one of the favorites in both springboard events after winning both 1-meter and 3-meter titles at the Pac-12 Championships en route to Diver of the Meet and UCLA/Muscle Milk Student Athlete of the Week honors.
Senior Traci Shiver (platform) and sophomore Alice Yanovsky (3-meter) are also set to compete for the Bruins.
There are currently 96 entrants from 29 schools in the Zone Championships, men and women combined.
A schedule of events for women's divers with tentative start times is as follows:
Monday, March 11
Three-Meter Prelim – 11:30 a.m.
Three-Meter Final – 3:00 p.m.
Tuesday, March 12
One-Meter Prelim – 11:30 a.m.
One-Meter Final – 3:00 p.m.
Wednesday, March 13
Platform Prelim – 11 a.m.
Platform Final – 1:30 p.m.
Each event's top 18 preliminary-round scorers will advance to the final. Final placing at the conclusion of each event will be determined by adding preliminary- and final-round scores together. The top eight scorers in the one-meter and three-meter competitions will earn spots at 2019 NCAA Division I Women's Swimming and Diving Championships in Austin, Tex. (Mar. 20-23). The top nine platform performers will earn berths. Additionally, if a diver earns an auto-qualifying spot in at least one event and a top-12 spot in another event, she will also qualify for NCAAs in that event.
Polyakova enters Zones coming off a two-title performance at Pac-12s, topping the podium in both 1M (335.70) and 3M (350.70). Both scores were her second-best of the year. She did not compete on tower. The 2018-19 campaign has been a banner one for Polyakova. She set a school record on Nov. 3 with a score of 355.50 in 1M and has UCLA's highest score this year in 3M (375.75 at the Bruin Diving Invitational on Jan. 18). On top of her Diver of the Meet Awards at the league championships, she has been named the Pac-12 Diver of the Week/Month twice this season, giving her six for her career.
The 2017 Pac-12 Diver of the Year, Polyakova has a strong history at the Zone meet. In her last time out (2017), she won both 1M and 3M en route to CSCAA All-America honors in both events. As a sophomore in 2016, she placed top-three in both 1M and 3M.
The reigning Pac-12 Diver of the Year, Belanger has had a stellar senior season of her own. Making her debut in January, the Montreal, Quebec native won the 1M title in all three regular season meets she entered. She added a 3M win on Feb. 1 at Stanford, a performance that helped her win Pac-12 Diver of the Week honors. She qualified for Zones in all three events in one swift stroke at the Bruin Diving Invitational, winning both the 1M and platform championships that weekend and taking second in 3M. At last year's Zones, Belanger placed second and qualified for NCAAs in all three events.
This is the second straight year of qualifying for Zones for both Shiver and Yanovsky.
Shiver has had a strong year on tower, posting three separate Zones-qualifying scores. Her top mark of the year came at the Bruin Diving Invitational, as she claimed sixth place with a score of 241.40. Other top performances include her win at Cal (218.10) and her runner-up performance at the Georgia Fall Invitational (241.00).
Yanovsky bounced back from an early-season injury to have a solid 2018-19, culminating in a return visit to Zones in 3M. She came on strong late in the year, notching a season-best 288.68 in 3M at Cal on Feb. 2, good for second place. She had earlier qualified for Zones with a 285.70 in the prelims of the Georgia Fall Invitational.
Stay tuned to @UCLASwimAndDive on Twitter for in-progress updates at the 2019 Zone E Championships.