The NC State diving team traveled to Knoxville, Tennessee this week to compete in the NCAA Zone B Championships. Nine Wolfpack athletes participated, with two divers qualifying for the NCAA Championship in the 1-meter springboard event for the first time.

On the women’s side, the top 11 finishers in the 1-meter, the top nine on the 3-meter and the top six on the platform qualified for the NCAA Championship. Senior Helene Synnott was the only NC State female to accomplish this feat, posting a score of 552.9 to finish in 11th place in the 1-meter, despite going into the finals as the 14 seed. Sophomore Ashton Zuburg also advanced to the 1-meter finals, but fell short with a 16th-place finish. 

Rounding out the NC State women’s 1-meter lineup were freshmen Ren Watt and Celia Bidwell and junior Clara Tate, finishing in 43rd, 37th and 30th, respectively and did not advance to the finals. 

In the women’s 3-meter event, Synnott earned a spot in the finals but failed to earn a second NCAA qualification, capturing a 14th-place finish. Zuburg and Tate pulled out 31st and 40th, respectively. 

On the platform, junior Mary O’Neill and Tate claimed nearly back-to-back finishes at 23rd and 25th.

For the men’s competition, the top seven finishers in the 1-meter, top eight in the 3-meter and top nine on the platform earned a bid to compete at the NCAA Championship. Similar to the women’s team, just one man from NC State earned that qualification. Freshman Renato Calderaro took sixth in the 1-meter event to earn a trip to the championship meet. Senior Bayne Bennett also competed in the finals, but fell short of a qualification in 13th place. In the prelims, senior Patrick O’Brien recorded a score of 260.10 to place 33rd.

O’Brien fared much better on the platform, but still missed qualifying for the finals by one place. The same thing happened to Bennett in the 3-meter event; his score of 333.45 put him just outside the top-18 finals qualifiers. Calderaro advanced to the finals in the 3-meter but finished in eleventh place.

Synnott will return to Knoxville next week to compete in the NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships, a four-day event beginning on March 15. The following week, Calderaro will travel to Minneapolis, Minnesota to compete in the men’s championship meet beginning on March 22.