Divers Shine at NCAA Zone Championships

Even though Harvard only had three divers present at the NCAA Zone Diving Championships this weekend in Annapolis, Md., the Crimson trio managed to hold its own against national competition. Harvard’s highlight came from freshman Samantha Papadakis, who notched a second-place finish in the one-meter competition.

“Everyone did really great,” junior Danil Rybalko said. “This is a hard meet for us to perform well in because it’s the week after our conference meet and to get back up to that high level is hard. The fact that we did that shows that we are ready to compete at that level.”

Competing against some of the country’s premier divers can be intimidating, but the three Harvard divers embraced the challenge.

“It wasn’t any more intimidating than going into a national level meet but it was kind of scary going in,” freshman Lucas Sanders said. “I just felt really young because they were all 22 and 23.”

The meet lasted for three days, with competition Friday through yesterday. The platform competition took place yesterday, however, and as the Crimson did not have any competing platform divers the Harvard contingent finished competition Saturday.

Papadakis was the lone female representative for the Crimson. She registered the highest finish of Harvard competitors on the second day of competition in the one-meter dive event, taking second to Yale’s Melanie Loftus.

“I would say that I am never really satisfied because you can never have a perfect meet,” Papadakis said. “But walking out of the pool I couldn’t be happier with how well I did.”

In the morning Papadakis finished a solid fourth in the preliminaries, well above the top-18 cutoff for the finals. The final results were calculated by adding the preliminary score to the final score. Papadakis dove exceptionally well in the afternoon to secure her second-place finish with a score of 493.00. Loftus, the first-place finisher, was only .65 points above her.

“[Later] I realized that I had a really good meet, one of my best, and I came in second to a senior and I have three more years to do this,” Papadakis said. “I realized that I am more ready now to come back next year.”

But even though she dove well, Papadakis still had to deal with a major disappointment. Only the first-place finisher in each event qualifies for the NCAA Championships and thus Papadakis missed being able to qualify by 0.65 points.

“She was definitely upset because she knows she can dive on a national level and I know she can do it,” Sanders said. “Especially after that girl had already qualified the previous day is so disappointing. I was so upset for her. She deserves it.”

Papadakis also competed in the three-meter dive event on the first day of competition. After the morning preliminaries Papadakis was in fourth place. But she was not able to score as high in her final dives as she would on the second day, finishing with an overall score of 431.20 and a sixth-place finish.

Papadakis was the only female Crimson diver at the event, but Harvard ended up sending both of its male divers, Sanders and Rybalko.

Rybalko had an impressive performance in the one-meter dive on the first day of competition, finishing the preliminaries in first place.

But even though Rybalko received a higher score in his final dives, it was only good enough to guarantee him an overall final score of 631.80 and a third-place finish.

“I mean, we did want to qualify,” Rybalko said. “We all did really well this season and we all had a good chance to qualify, but despite the fact that we didn’t qualify we still had a good meet.”

Sanders took fifth in the preliminaries to qualify him for the finals later in the day.

His cumulative score of 549.05 was good for a seventh-place finish overall.

“I could have dove a bit better,” Sanders said. “A lot of diving is just going to these meets and getting exposure to the other coaches because the coaches are going to be the ones who are going to decide your score. So I went out there as a freshman and I showed them who I am.”

In the three-meter event, Sanders and Rybalko started out the day strong with seventh- and eighth-place finishes in the preliminaries to qualify them for the finals. But they were not able to move up in the finals, with both receiving overall scores of 488.10 to solidify their seventh- and eighth-place finishes in the event.

Even though Harvard walked away with no NCAA qualifying divers, the Crimson divers were able to walk away happy.

“[Papadakis] and I got together at the beginning of the meet and decided that we can go into this meet and be worried about qualifying and diving so well,” Sanders said. “But why don’t we go in and just be excited to dive and have so much fun because we dive so much better when we are just having fun.”

—Staff writer Abigail M. Baird can be reached at ambaird@fas.harvard.edu.