March 11, 2004

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Five of Purdue's top divers will compete at the NCAA Central Regional Diving Zones, beginning Friday at noon. This meet, which serves as a final stage to the NCAA Championships, will be held at Indiana University's Counsilman-Billingsley Aquatic Center.

Even though Clayton Davis, J.R. Hillis, Josh Karshen, Amanda Miller and Carrie McCambridge all enjoyed great regular seasons and scored at the Big Ten Championships, they still need to secure their spot at the NCAA meet, by competing at this three-day diving marathon.

The Central Regional Diving Zone or Zone 'C' is similar to the Big Ten Championships since it features nine of Purdue's conference rivals (minus Penn State), as well as several other Midwestern universities, including Akron, Marshall and Notre Dame.

Overall, there will be 40 athletes from 17 schools competing at this event. And although there are 40 qualifying spots available throughout the five zones around the country, Zone 'C' is only given 11 slots for the women and six for the men.

The women first compete off the 1-meter on Friday, while the men dive off the 3-meter springboard. On Saturday, the men and women swap springboards, and then finish competition on Sunday off the platform tower. Friday's and Saturday's dives start at noon, while Sunday's discipline begins at 11 a.m.

McCambridge will have a great chance to reach the NCAA Championships, if she can duplicate her Big Ten performances. Last month, McCambridge became one of the most decorated divers in Purdue history as she captured all three conference diving titles en route to being named Big Ten Diver of the Year and Diver of the Championships.

At last season's Zone meet, held at the University of Miami (Ohio), McCambridge finished high off all three diving boards, but just missed the cut for the NCAA Championships.

Miller, who also scored in all three diving events at Big Tens, is making her Zone debut and hopes to match McCambridge's success. At the conference championship meet, Miller scored in all three diving disciplines, placing ninth off the platform, 13th off the 3-meter and 14th off the 1-meter.

Davis, who is returning to the Zones for a third straight year, is coming off a Big Ten Championship meet, in which he placed 10th off the platform and 16th off the 3-meter springboard. Even through Davis didn't attain his best scores at Big Ten's; he had strung together a series of victories through the regular season, sweeping springboard competitions against Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Indiana.

Karshen and Hillis also gave solid performances off the platform at Big Ten's, as the tandem finished second and third, with personal best scores of 511.60 and 445.30. During the first day of competition, Karshen, an all-Big Ten second team selection, placed sixth off the 1-meter with a score of 292.90.

Indiana's athletics web site, www.iuhoosiers.com, has provided a link off its front page detailing the entire Zone 'C' Championship. Their link includes a list of teams, competitors, as well as details on how divers qualify for Zones and how they advance to the national championship meet. The site also will provide live results starting Friday.

The women's national championship meet takes place at Texas A&M from March 18 to 20, while the men compete on Long Island from March 25 to 27.

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