UCLA
NCAA Zone E Diving Championships
Neave, Butler Punch Tickets to NCAAs on Day 1 of Zones
March 09, 2020 | Swimming & Diving
FEDERAL WAY, Wash. โ No. 24 UCLA had a pair of divers, junior Ruby Neave and freshman Hannah Butler, punch their tickets to the 2020 NCAA Championships with top-six finishes in 1-meter diving on Monday in the first day of the Zone E Diving Championships at the King County Aquatic Center.
Neave, the 2020 Pac-12 individual champion in 1M, was the runner-up on Monday with a combined score of 613.85 across prelims and finals. Butler was the sixth-place finisher with a total score of 565.00. This is the fourth consecutive season in which a Bruin has finished either first or second at the Zone E Championships and the sixth consecutive season that a UCLA diver has hit the podium.
"What I was really pleased with today was the way we managed moments - we made a couple mistakes at certain times but at no point did they look like they were questioning what they were about as student-athletes," said UCLA head diving coach Tom Stebbins. "When you do that, it means a lot because if you can execute what you've been training, the result generally takes care of itself. They did an outstanding job of that today and it was fun to watch them grow into that."
With two days still remaining at Zones, UCLA has already secured multiple NCAA-qualifying divers for the second consecutive season. Butler is the Bruins' first freshman diver to secure an NCAA trip since Eloise Belanger in 2016.
Both Neave and Butler were top-five after the preliminary round of Monday's competition, with Neave notching a 309.15 for second place and Butler logging a season-best score of 285.95 to take fifth.
Neave kept the consistency up in the finals round, scoring at least a 47.50 on all six of her dives including scores over 50.00 on her final three attempts. In third for most of the finals, she jumped into second with a 59.80 on her final dive, a 5333D. That represented her highest score for any single attempt on Monday and her lifetime-best score for that particular dive.
The Melbourne, Australia native recorded a score of 304.70 in the finals. Paired with her prelims score, she netted her fourth and fifth 1M lists of the year that netted at least 300 points.
Butler dropped close to the bubble for NCAA qualification after a 36.00 on the second dive of her finals list, but rebounded to post scores of 45.00 or higher on her final four attempts. She jumped up to sixth place with scores of 53.30 and 50.70 on her last two attempts.
Daphne Wils of Hawaii was the 1M champion on Monday with a score of 634.80.
The Zone E Diving Championships continue on Tuesday with the 3-meter competition. UCLA will have three entries: Neave, Butler, and freshman Katie Shaheen. 3M prelims start at 11:00 a.m. with finals beginning at approximately 2:30 p.m. ย
Players Mentioned
