Jan. 10, 2003
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Arizona State freshman men's diver Joona Puhakka recorded a 374.01 in this morning's 3-meter springboard preliminaries to earn a No. 2 seed going into tomorrow's quarterfinal competition at the Speedo American Cup. The seedings for each diver are carried throughout the remainder of the competition.
The quarterfinal rounds are conducted in a head-to-head format between the top eight remaining divers. Puhakka will square off against the No. 7 seed, Andy Bradley, on Saturday afternoon at 1:00 p.m. local time. Bradley, diving unattached in this meet, is in his first year of diving for the University of South Carolina. He dove last season for BYU and earned honorable mention All-American honors for his 16th place finish in the 3-meter competition at the NCAAs.
The winner of the quarterfinal matchup faces the winner between No. 3 seed Phillip Jones of the University of Tennessee and No. 6 seed Marc Carlton of Indiana University, at 2:30 p.m. local time on Saturday.
Arizona State sophomore women's diver Trisha Tumlinson barely missed qualifying for the final round of the platform diving optionals.
Tumlinson finished the preliminary round with a score of 281.04, giving her the No. 3 seed going into the quarterfinals. In the quarterfinal round, Tumlinson registered a 244.50, which was good enough for fourth-place on her side of the bracket, but only the top three in each quarterfinal advanced to the final round on Sunday. The third place contestant in Tumlinson's quarterfinal advanced with a 246.39, 1.89 points ahead of the Sun Devil diver.
This meet marked only the second time this season that Tumlinson had seen competition on the platform. Last month at the Texas Invitational, she set the school record in the nine-dive platform event with a 453.15, besting the previous record by almost 15 points.