Dec. 18, 2015
Scott Lazeroff scored a 75.90 on his final dive of the afternoon to top the 400-point mark as Auburn swept the platform event on the last day of the Auburn Fall Invitational. Lazeroff scored a 410.75 to win while Justin Youtsey was second (340.95) and Pete Turnham was third (319.45).
“I had a pretty decent 1- and 3-meter competition but I wasn’t really happy about it so I wanted to end with a bang,” Lazeroff said. “All day I visualized my dives and visualized what I had to do to get the score that I wanted, which was a 400. I was focused one dive at a time. I love twisters and I knew I could do it (final dive, a 3 ½ twister) well and I was confident in what I had to do.”
“It was really a great performance,” Auburn head coach Jeff Shaffer said. “Anytime you are over 400 on tower you are in a position of being at the top of the SEC and scoring at NCAAs, and that’s our goal. Justin and Pete did some outstanding dives as well.”
Earlier during the week, Youtsey claimed the 1- and 3-meter titles to give Auburn’s men a clean sweep of the invitational.
On the women’s tower, Morgan Mullins, who hadn’t competed in the first two events, scored a 233.15 to place second. Carly Scheper was fifth (218.65), Maddie Cox was eighth (209.25) and Miranda Telmanik was ninth (204.80).
“I thought Morgan did a great job,” Shaffer said. “She’s been limited in what she can do because of an ankle injury but she hit the zone qualifying score. The other girls are making some corrections.”
Auburn will break for the holidays and return to competition on Jan. 3 for the first day of the three-day Georgia Diving Invite.