Feb. 27, 2010
The Arizona State University diving team capped its spectacular weekend at the Pacific-10 Championships taking home two more conference crowns. The Sun Devils swept the platform events as Riley McCormick and Elina Eggers each took the top of the podium. Constantin Blaha was awarded "Male Diver of the Meet," after his outstanding three-day performance.
"It was an exciting weekend for us," said a very happy head coach Mark Bradshaw. "Everyone had something special about their performance that stood out."
McCormick, who is currently ranked eighth in the world, destroyed the previous Pac-10 record with 476.8 points. He outscored USC's Harrison Jones by almost 30 points to become Mark Bradshaw's fifth male Pac-10 Champion.
"Riley had an outstanding list of dives and just shattered the Pac-10 record," said Bradshaw.
An Olympic finalist on the 10-meter tower, Eggers easily won her first conference title with 308.75 to add a gold medal to her silver on the 3-meter and bronze on the 1-meter. Eggers, who actually finished second in the preliminaries, took first by almost 40 points. She is the first ASU female diver to earn a Pac-10 Championship since Trisha Tomlinson in 2005, who also won the 10-meter.
"Elina didn't even dive her best but she stepped it up in the finals and had finishing power which is why she is an Olympian and as successful as she is," said Bradshaw. "I've seen her dive better but that's ok because she has bigger meets coming up."
Constantin Blaha nearly reached the podium for a third time. Blaha scored 387.2 points to finish fourth behind Stanford's Brent Eichenseer's tally of 391.85. With a gold and silver medal along with a fourth place finish, Blaha was honored as the Pac-10 Diver of the meet.
"We got a bit of a surprise out of Coco considering it isn't one of his events," said Bradshaw. "We thought we'd throw him in there and see if he could score some points and he did very well and nearly reached the podium."
The Sun Devils will head out to Austin, Texas next to attempt to qualify for the NCAA Championships at the NCAA Zone E Championships. The meet will be held March 11-13.