Jan. 3, 2008
ATHENS, Ga. - With the swimming team wrapping up the Holiday Training Trip in Fort Peirce, Fla., Auburn's divers wasted no time starting the new year with the first day of the Georgia Diving Invitational on Thursday.
"Overall, I am very happy with how we competed today," said head diving coach Jeff Shaffer. "We talked about the objectives for each diver before the competition, what we want to accomplish with each meet and each dive, and we hit more of our objectives than we missed. This meet is a strong barometer of where we are as we work toward getting ready for SEC competition in February."
Sophomore Kelly Marx led AU in the first day of the competition, finishing second on the men's 3-meter springboard with a zone-qualifying 366.75, finishing behind Georgia's Chris Colwill, a member of the World Championship team. Marx also finished second in the preliminaries, posting a 360.50.
Dan Mazzaferro followed in eighth place with a 327.05, falling four spots from his fourth-place (342.00) finish in prelims. Also qualifying was Scott Morgan, placing 10th with a score of 304.15. Morgan's finals score was up from his 293.60 (11th) in preliminaries.
Caleb Dunnichay also competed on the 3-meter, coming in 23rd in prelims with a score of 240.10.
For the women, newcomer Courtney Brown was the lone competitor on the 1-meter as she finished 38 th in prelims with a score of 157.60. Shaffer said the competition is an important stepping-stone for Brown.
"This is her first big-time invitational," said Shaffer. "She did two new dives that she worked on over break and it is important for her to get in there and do these dives in competition."
Action in the Georgia Diving Invitational continues Friday with the women's 3-meter and men's 1-meter. Other teams competing at the three-day event are Georgia, Pitt, Purdue, LSU, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Florida, Drexel, Kentucky, SMU, Penn State, East Carolina and Arkansas.