Swimming: Robinson Travels to Zone Championships
March 12, 2009 12:58 PM | General
By Grant Dovey for MSNsportsNET.com
March 12, 2009
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - The West Virginia University swimming and diving team has announced that junior diver Brandon Robinson will be traveling to Buffalo, N.Y. from March 12-14 to take part in the 2009 NCAA Zone “A” Diving Championships.
“Brandon has improved immensely finishing up his junior year, which has led to qualifying for his first ever zone championships meet,” Diving Coach Laura Lunn said. “We are looking forward to him gaining tremendous experience at this high level competition.”
Robinson, a Sicklerville, N.J., native, placed in the B-finals in both the 1-meter and 3-meter dives in this year’s BIG EAST Championships. He finished 12th in both events gathering 248.35 points in the 1-meter and 261.35 points in the 3-meter.
“I am very excited to compete and represent WVU at the next level,” Robinson said. “I’ve worked very hard over the course of the year and with the help from my coach and fellow divers I am prepared for this caliber of competition.”
This past season Robinson had his best year of diving with career-highs at Arizona with a score of 293.93 points in the 1-meter and 320.55 points in the 3-meter.
“It will be very beneficial for Brandon to attend this meet, gain the experience and be exposed to this level of competition going in to his senior season next year,” Lunn said. “He is a very talented diver that has improved by leaps and bounds each and every season he has been with the WVU swimming and diving team.”
Divers must qualify through a separate meet instead of just meeting a set standard like swimmers. Since diving is subjectively scored, these zone meets drastically reduce the impact that any given set of diving coaches scoring diving at dual meets can have on the NCAA meet by forcing zone-cut divers to compete against each other regionally.
There are five different zones in the NCAA and 66 schools in Zone “A.” The Zone “A” championships will be held at the University of Buffalo in the Alumni Arena Natatorium.
