University of Tennessee Athletics
Comebacks Define Second Day of Invite
January 04, 2011 | Men's Swimming & Diving
Jan. 4, 2011
Tennessee junior Ryan Helms was on the bubble and needed a great final dive to make it into the championship round of the men's three-meter springboard on Tuesday.
He did just that, making the finals on day two of the Tennessee Diving Invitational. The Moultrie, Ga., native averaged a 7-out-of-10 on his final dive during the prelims and was seeded eighth for the championship round.
"The prelim round was just rough for me," Helms said. "I threw some new dives in there. I'm glad I got them in today, but I do wish I could've executed better. So I was in a place where I needed a big dive in the last prelim round--I didn't really know that until afterwards, though. But I was just calm and everything just fell into place. I just tried to do it like I always do it."
After making it into the finals, it was a different Vol making the comeback. Senior co-captain Michael Wright was in a similar predicament to Helms after just three dives during the championship round.
"I dug myself into a hole--when you're in the finals you can't afford to have just so-so dives," Wright said. "So for the last three dives I had to work my way back up there. My last dive was my best dive of the day. I knew I had one dive left so it was go big or go home and I made it back up to second place."
Wright's second-place 381.05-point score was just off Daniel Mazzaferro's 397.65-point first-place score. Auburn's Mazzaferro had a strong outing his last time out at UT's Home Waters, placing third on the three-meter during the 2009 Tennessee Diving Invite.
"I think the pool plays some factor in how you perform," Mazzaferro said. "This is a state-of-the-art facility and I always love coming here. I'm very pleased with my finals. I thought I was pretty consistent and that's what diving is all about."
Helms placed eighth with a score of 348.00 points. Knoxville-native Brent Sterling again narrowly missed the final round in 13th place with a 326.25-point mark. Sophomore Jordan Mauney finished in 23rd with a score of 282.50 points.
"I obviously want our guys to win their events, but it was a very exciting day," diving coach Dave Parrington said. "For the dives we were throwing out there--Ryan, Mike and Brent were really using some difficult dives in the prelims--I thought we did well.
Ryan started in a hole but I was really proud of how he worked back in there. Mike came up big on his last dive of the day. Brent pulled off a big dive today that he's had some trouble with in practice. I think today is a day that will help us when we get to SECs later this year."
Wednesday is the final day of competition and features the platform event. Women's platform is slated to begin at 10 a.m. and men's competition will tentatively begin at 1:40 p.m. Live results during the meet as well as official results following each day of competition can be found at www.DiveMeets.com.
Players Mentioned
