University of Tennessee Athletics
Lamp Reaches Platform Finals at Nationals
August 15, 2012 | Swimming & Diving
Aug. 15, 2012
GREENSBORO, N.C. -- Tennessee junior Tori Lamp progressed through two rounds to the finals in the platform competition Wednesday at the AT&T National Diving Championships
Lamp is currently in fifth place after posting a five-dive score of 326.40 in the semifinals and was one of 12 to move to the final round.
She was 12 points behind semifinal leader Amy Cozad (338.40) after scoring a 62.40 on her final dive of the round. While that would be a good score for most, it was more than 11 points off her lofty career average.
The finals for the women's platform is set for Saturday.
"She missed her third dive a little, but that's one she has been struggling with a little lately," Tennessee diving coach Dave Parrington said. "By her standards, she missed a little on her last dive as well. Otherwise, she probably would have won the round.
"Still, it was good to make the finals, and we'll make some little adjustments before the final."
Lamp, the Knoxville native and reigning SEC champion on the platform, scored a 328.85 in the preliminary round earlier in the day. In this meet, the diving scores do not add up from previous rounds.
Senior Brent Sterling reached the semifinals of the men's 3-meter springboard competition but did not advance to the final round. After scoring a 76.50 on his second dive in the semifinals, he posted two dives below 50 - including his fourth dive for 33.25 - to finish the round in 15th with 347.50 points.
In all, the performance was a strong turnaround for Sterling, who did not make it out of the preliminaries on the 1 meter Tuesday.
"Brent started out really well, but he missed on his fourth dive," Parrington said. "It was a critical dive and dragged him down 30 or 35 points in the standings and it cost him. Outside of that dive, he did a good job reaching his first senior national semifinal."
Fellow senior Jordan Mauney made his debut on the springboard at a senior national event, placing 24th in the preliminaries with a score of 321.60. Sterling scored 376.35 in the morning competition, the ninth-best performance.
