Utah dive coach Richard Marschner turned to senior diver Kersten Merry before last weekend’s NCAA swimming and diving championships and said, “You could be an All-American.” The Edmonton, Alberta-born Merry quickly responded, “I don’t want to be an All-American — I want to be an All-Canadian.”
After Merry won her consolation final in the 10-meter platform dive with a school record score of 319.30, earning All-American status, she was more than happy to associate herself with her neighbor from the south.
“Now that I know what it means and how hard it is to get there, it’s so amazing that I have those honors,” Merry said.
After finishing 17th and missing All-American status by one spot in the one-meter dive on the opening day of competition, Merry found redemption on the platform. Early on, however, it didn’t look like that would be the case.
After the first dive of the competition, Merry was dead last, but the senior battled back to make her final meet one to remember. She was able to qualify for consolation finals to set up for a triumphant finish to her Utah career.
“When I go up on the 10-meter and it’s home, it’s my zen, my happy place,” Merry said.
She had a goal for that last session to just have fun, something that’s a lot easier to do with a win. Merry went on to win the consolation round, the last collegiate competition she would compete in, beating her own school record in the process.
“I looked at my score and screamed,” Merry said. “That score was phenomenal — I completely destroyed the record that I had set.”
Merry’s triumph was part of a successful weekend for Utah, who finished 29th as a team and doubled their all-time All-American total, upping it to six. Joining Merry on the All-American team were senior Traycie Swartz, (11th in the 100-yard freestyle) and freshman Stina Colleou (ninth in the 200-yard breaststroke).
All three of those performances came on the final day of the competition.
“It was awesome,” said head coach Joe Dykstra. “It was the best Utah has ever done in the NCAA championships, so when you have done something you have never done, it’s awesome.”
The Utes started the three-day meet with a number of close calls, as swimmers just missed out on qualifying for the finals numerous times.
“We were a little sluggish getting into the meet,” Dykstra said. “We were just short in a number of events.”
Even as Utah let opportunities pass them by, they all knew their best events were still to come.
At the end of the 100-yard freestyle preliminaries Saturday morning, Swartz was with her team, waiting to see if she would be swimming in the second session. When her name came up 14th, ensuring her All-American status and giving herself another chance to swim, her teammates around her started to tear up.
“They knew how much it meant to her as a senior,” Dykstra said. “What the team has been through and all of that stuff to have that kind of accomplishments meant so much to all of them.”
Swartz improved on her seed in finals and broke the school record in the process with a time of 48.04. Another school record was broken in the 200-yard breaststroke by Colleou with a time of 2:08.35 as the freshman won the consolation final.
“I couldn’t be more proud of those girls,” Dykstra said. “They all knew that their best events was the last day. So we all knew that in the back of the mind if we could get to the last day we would have our best shot.”
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