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DIVING
THURSDAY, JANUARY 31, 2013
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Senior diver Christy Cash will be competing in the NCAA Championship Zone "D" in March in Houston for her last season at Kansas. Cash qualified earlier this month in Hawaii scoring 226 on the 10-meter platform. Cash is excited for her last season as a Jawhayh. "I'm just looking forward to conference," Cash said.
GEORGE MULLINIX /KANSAN
Senior aims to improve at NCAA diving tournament
STELLA LIANG
sliang@kansan.com
Senior diver Christy Cash made some goals coming into her last season. She wanted to learn two new dives and earn personal best scores during meets. She also wanted to build upon her success from last year and qualify for the NCAA Zone "D" Diving Regions again.
Needing a score of 225 on the 10-meter platform event to qualify, she earned a spot with her score of 226 on Jan. 18 in Honolulu.
Cash
"My goal was to qualify as early as I could so that I didn't have to worry about it," Cash said. "I hoped to be qualified by the end of winter training."
According to the NCAA, there are five regional zones and Kansas is part of zone "D". At the regional meets, divers compete for spots to the NCAA championship. This year, the zone "D" competition will be held in Houston March 11-13. Scores needed to qualify are 265 for the one-meter springboard event, 280 for the three-meter springboard and 225 for the platform.
Cash said she estimates there are 40 divers who compete at the zone "D" championships. The top 11 divers move on to the NCAA
championship.
This will not be her first time there and she hopes her experience from last year will help her at this year's competition.
"I think that my nerves will be a lot less," Cash said. "Going in there, I will know what to expect. I've been there before. I know how the format works and how everything is run."
Beyond her goal of reaching zones, as she calls it, she wanted to finish her diving career on a strong note. She did learn two new dives this year, the back two-and-a-half pike on the three-meter board and front three-and-a-half pike on the 10-meter platform.
Cash started swimming her
freshman year at Shawnee Mission West High School. She was a gymnast at the time and joined the school swimming and diving team because her friend asked her to try it out.
For the next three years, she continued doing gymnastics and dove for the school team. Her senior year, she stopped doing gymnastics and started diving year round. When she had the opportunity to come to Kansas to dive, she knew it was the right decision for her.
"I've grown up a Jayhawk," Cash said. "Since I was little, this is where I wanted to come. The coach here, Eric, was my club coach, so I knew his coaching and I knew I liked him and got along with him. I knew it
would be a good fit for me."
After diving for many years, she said some dives become routine and are etched into her muscle memory. When it comes to new and more difficult dives, she said she still feels the rush when she dives off the board.
"It's just so crazy." Cash said. "The coolest thing is the adrenaline rush that you get after you learn a new dive or do a dive that you've just learned. It just gets you so hyped to learn other dives or try other things."
Cash recently had the opportunity to try diving somewhere new during the winter training trip the swimming and diving team took to California and Hawaii over winter
break.
"We got to dive outside in the sun with mountains in the background." Cash said "Overall it was a really good experience."
Cash has been enjoying her senior season so far and is looking forward to the rest of it.
"I think our team is in a really good spot this year as far as team chemistry goes," Cash said. "We have a lot of talent on the team, so I'm just excited to see how we all pull together in the end and how we do. Obviously, I'm excited for zones, my potentially last meet."
Edited by Dylan Lysen
ROBERT J. DOLE INSTITUTE OF POLITICS The University of Kansas
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Inspiring MLK: The Mentorship of Benjamin Elijah Mays with KU Professor Randal Maurice Jelks
Tuesday, Feb. 5 at 7:30 p.m.
A Black History Month program, Jelks will discuss the man Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called his "spiritual and intellectual father." This program contains a book sale and signing of Jelks' book, Benjamin Elijah Mays, Schoolmaster of the Movement.
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As part of Kansas Public Radio's 60th anniversary celebration, we're highlighting the important role news coverage has played in the station's history. To showcase our partnership with NPR, we'll turn the tables on NPR White House Correspondent Scott Horsley as he is interviewed regarding the 2012 presidential campaign.
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Integrating diplomacy and defense and forging international security partnerships makes political-military affairs a timeless political topic. Spring 2013 Fellow, Brigadier General Roosevelt Barfield (Ret.), will explore the definitions, perspectives and stakeholders responsible for political-military strategy. 4:00-5:30 p.m. Wednesdays
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