Lafayette Times

Quartet of Divers Represent the Women at NCAAs

For the second year in a row, a quartet of divers are set to represent Purdue women's swimming & diving in the national spotlight provided by the NCAA Championships.

Sophie McAfee, Maggie Merriman, Maycey Vieta and Daryn Wright earned the right to compete at the national championship meet. McAfee and Wright will compete on 3-meter Friday and then all four Boilermakers are among the platform field Saturday.

The Allan Jones Aquatic Center in Knoxville is hosting the women's NCAA Championships this week. It was also selected to host diving's 2024 U.S. Olympic Team Trials. Merriman and Vieta competed at Tennessee's pool in November 2019 as part of Purdue's co-ed dual meet with the Volunteers.

Merriman has qualified for NCAAs for the fourth time, becoming just the fifth Purdue diver (both genders) to accomplish the feat. She's a three-year All-American on the tower – finishing fourth in 2021 and fifth a year ago.

Vieta is back at NCAAs for the third time. She's the reigning Big Ten champion on platform and also an NCAAs bronze medalist in the event (2021).

McAfee and Wright have demonstrated their versatility once again, this time by qualifying for NCAAs in both a springboard event and the tower. McAfee is 6-for-6 in top 10 finishes during her underclassman seasons at the Big Ten Championships and 5-for-5 in qualifying for NCAAs in events she's opted to compete in at the Zone C Championships. Wright eclipsed Purdue freshman records on both springboards this season and earned the right to represent the U.S. on the tower at the 2022 World Championships after winning the event as a high school senior at the 2021 USA Diving Winter Nationals. She also finished top 10 in all three diving events in her debut at Big Tens.

The Purdue women have produced four of the top-10 finishers on platform at the Big Ten Championships each of the last two seasons and three of the last four years. Two years ago, they were able to carry over that success to NCAAs, producing three of the top seven finishers the year Vieta and Merriman went 3-4. It was a big reason the Boilermakers earned a meet-high 56 team points in the diving events in 2021. Like Wright, Vieta and Merriman also competed at the World Championships this past summer in Budapest.

Purdue has had at least one women's diver earn All-America honors at the NCAA Championships in 17 of the last 18 years the meet has been held. That run dates back to 2004, with 2012 being the only year a Purdue diver did not qualify for the national championship meet. McAfee and Wright aim to join the short list of program greats that have claimed full-fledged (top 8) All-America honors on a springboard and the platform in the same year. Carrie McCambridge (2005), Amanda Miller (2007) and Emily Bretscher (2021) represent the trio that has accomplished that feat.

Purdue qualified four student-athletes for the men's NCAA Championships next week – swimmers Nick Sherman and Brady Samuels as well as divers Sam Bennett and Jordan Rzepka. Minnesota is hosting the men's national championship meet.

The top 16 finishers in the preliminaries clinch All-America honors and advance to finals. The top eight compete for the national championship in the evening finals. Diving is traditionally the final individual event of the finals sessions and begins in a window of approximately 7:45 to 8:15 p.m. ET. Consolation finals for diving are held a few minutes after the prelims end. Springboard prelims begin at 12:15 p.m. – with 1-meter Thursday and 3-meter Friday. Saturday's platform prelim gets underway at noon.

Original source can be found here.