Dec. 18, 2017
Two days, two second-place finishes for Auburn diver Pete Turnham at the annual Auburn Diving Invitational.
Turnham, who picked up a second-place finish on Sunday on the 3-meter, posted a personal-best 366.25 in Monday's 1-meter competition to finish behind winner Juan Hernandez of LSU (388.25) for the second straight day.
"That was just fun, I don't know what else to say," Turnham said of his performance on Monday. "You have to keep in mind whenever you're competing, if you want to be the very best you have to at least imagine that you are better than those guys. Wanting to compete when you have people that really can beat you by 100 points or, in this case 22 points."
"A solid prelim and then a step-up in finals," Auburn diving coach Jeff Shaffer said. "Both days should give Pete a great deal of confidence as we move through the rest of the season."
Scott Lazeroff finished fourth with a finals score of 314.50, Logan Andrews was seventh (269.70), Justin Checchin 13th (249.20) and Zach Richards 15th (218.05). Andrews (298.80), Checchin (252.10) and Richards (224.50) each posted higher scores during prelims, with Andrews missing his personal best by 6.55 points and Richards by 0.85 points.
"The other guys are competing hard," Shaffer said. "We still need to work on some basic technique and finishing our dives. The improvement we are making doesn't always show in the place or the score. We're still trying to be a little more consistent in that and that's what this meet is all about."
In the women's 3-meter competition, Alison Maillard scored a 290.20 to finish sixth and Erin Norton scored a 273.15 to finish eighth, just 10 points shy of matching her personal best of 283.13 from the Alabama dual meet earlier this fall.
"I was happy with Erin's final on 3-meter. She got back to where she was a little bit earlier in the season," Shaffer said. "Alison did some great dives today, but they were in practice, not in the meet. But the progress she is making will show up as we move on, it was just one of those days."
Maillard had scored a 281.20 to place fifth out of prelims and Norton was 10th (224.65).
The invitational concludes on Tuesday with the platform competition, which begins at 11 am.
Admission is free.
Live scoring is available on divemeets.com throughout the invitational.