Utah Dive competed in a three-day invitational from Thursday through Saturday this week, Feb. 3-5, in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The Utes put up some dominant individual and team performances throughout the invite, adding highlights to what has already been an impressive season for the dive team.

The first day of competition, Thursday, was highlighted with a huge victory in a newly implemented team event.

“We had a really good day today with some great individual performances and it was highlighted by our men lighting it up in the team event,” head diving coach Richard Marschner told Utah Athletics. “The team event really allowed us to feed off each other and the energy in the pool was really high from the competitors and spectators.”

In the team event, each team must perform one of each of the following types of dives: front, back, reverse, inward, twist and armstand, a total of six dives. This is spread across three divers per team, who each perform two dives individually.

Junior Luke McDivitt dove for a score of 60.8 in the first round followed by a 72 in the second in the 10M dives of this new event. In addition to this, Tony Chen proved he was worthy of his recent Pac-12 Diver of the Week award by scoring a 55.5 on the 1M and a 76.5 on the 3M.

The third and final diver in the event for the Utes was Ben Smyth. Smyth’s score of 55.9 on the 1M and 51.3 on the 3M contributed to Utah’s all-around score of 372 in the event, good enough to secure a victory.

Utah was followed by California Baptist, Denver, BYU, the hosting Air Force and Wyoming in the standings.

“We’re looking forward to having this event included at Pac-12’s this year,” Marschner said.

Chen also represented Utah in the 1M final, and he posted a personal season-high, totaling 340.15 points.

“Individually Tony had a season-best on the 1M and he’s looking great as we head into the home stretch,” said Marschner.

On the women’s side, freshman Holly Waxman scored a new season-best to place fifth in the 3M with a final score of 300.85 points. Overall, the Utes kicked off the invite with an excellent showing, especially in the newly introduced team event.

On Friday, the women’s team took their turn in the team event, finishing strongly just behind first-place Wyoming, with a final score of 304.25.

“Our women had an incredibly strong team event as it was a back and forth contest with a very good Wyoming team,” Coach Marschner said via Utah Athletics. “It was really fun to be able to see our divers have the opportunity to compete in a true team event like this because we’ve never had that chance before.”

Matching a similar strategy as the men’s team during their event, Lexi Mills competed in both of the 10M rounds for Utah, putting up scores of 41.85 and 46.4. Lizzy DeCecco and Waxman competed in both the 1M and 3M dives, with DeCecco scoring a 54.6 in the 3M with a 49.2 on the 1M. Waxman finished with 49.2 on the 1M and 63 on the 3M.

BYU finished the event in third, followed by California Baptist, Air Force, and Denver.

On top of the women’s team event, the men’s 3M and the women’s 1M also occurred. Chen and McDivitt had outstanding performances in the 3M, with scores of 395.10 and 387.50, respectively, finishing in third and fourth. 

“Tony and Luke put together a brilliant 3M final and both were knocking on the door of cracking the 400-point barrier. The men’s 3M final was the best event that’s ever taken place at that pool,” Marschner stated.

In the women’s 1M final, Waxman finished with a season-best score of 280.70, good for fifth overall. While not in the official final, DeCecco and Mills competed in the consolation final, with DeCecco earning the win with a score of 275.40 and Mills earning third with a score of 246.35.

“Molly was very steady and strong on the 1M and we just need to tweak a minor issue on her entries and she’ll be ready for Pac-12’s and beyond,” Marschner said.

The diving team finished off the final day of the invite with both the men and women’s team earning victories in the platform final. Both teams had Utah finishing 1-2, with Mills and Smyth capturing the wins.

Mills had one of the best performances of her Utah career, setting two new personal records on the way to the victory, posting her personal-record 239.25 in the prelims. She then followed that up with another incredible performance to beat that exact same record, now with a score of 277.15. With her second record-setting performance, Mills moved into fourth all-time at Utah on platform. Waxman finished second, with her own personal best of 253.10. She jumped to fifth all-time on platform, right behind Mills.

“Our platform event was incredible on both the men’s and women’s sides with a huge effort by everyone today,” coach Marschner told Utah Athletics. “Lexi and Holly both put up a top-5 all-time score and now sit at four and five in school history. Lexi has been putting in a lot of work and focus on tower and we debuted another new dive for her. I’m thrilled with her hard work and it’s starting to show in the results.”

For the men’s team, Smyth earned his victory with a total score of 374.40 while McDivitt and Jenner Pennock finished second and fourth with scores of 337.85 and 333.45, respectively. Pennock also set a new personal record with this score.

“Ben and Luke traded places from prelims to finals but both put up two very lists that will place well at Pac-12’s and NCAA Zones,” Marschner said. “Jenner nearly got in there for the third and a full sweep of the podium for the men.” 

The Air Force Invitational marked the end of the regular meet season for the women’s swim and dive team, as they will not compete again until the Pac-12 Championships, which will take place from Feb. 23-26. The men’s team has one final dual meet on Saturday, Feb. 12, competing against USC.

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