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Prelims:
Due to the fact that I was stuck directing traffic in the
parking lot for the first hour of the competition (ahh, the
life of a volunteer J), I only got to see a few
optionals. Other spectators told me there were lots of “generous”
5s. What I got to see, however, was Nicole Pohorenec’s
5134D disappear for 8s, Kristen Marquis do a serviceable 405C
despite her just-operated on abcess and resultant chipmunk
cheeks, Erin Sones NAIL a pretty 5235D for 8s, Erica Sorgi
rip snot on a 305C for 8-9s, Sara Reiling nail a gainer for
9s but then leave a back short for 4.5s, Kathy Pesek jump
from the lower half of the pack into second with her 405B
for 9-9.5s.
I’ll fill in the blanks later.
Semis:
Wilkinson was solid with the 8-9s on everything, as is her
wont during vols. Culpepper was half-on, half off receiving
7-7.5s on her 103B and 612B but wowing the judges with her
403B and 5231D which garnered mostly 8.5s. Sorgi remained
solid with 8-8.5s on her extraordinarily pretty 103B and 403B,
and stayed the course with 7-7.5s on her 5231D (swingy) and
301B. Diea impressed with her Hempel-inspired 5231D, while
Armstrong did her usual nice job on vols for mostly 7.5-8s.
Pesek was mostly 8s (when she lines up, she’s awesome;
when she misses that lineup action, she has a tough time getting
down). And Reiling was on FIRE with mostly 8.5s throughout
her vols, including a WOW of a 5132D that disappeared much
like Mark Ruiz’ 5371C 3M last night.
After the first round of the semis, it was Pesek, Wilkinson,
Reiling. At the conclusion of the second round, the order
had changed to Reiling, Wilkinson, Pesek. Then, with one
more dive left, Wilkinson went into the lead, Reiling dropped
to a VERY close second, and Pesek remained within striking
distance. And this was also the order in which the women
concluded the semis, with Wilkinson leading Reiling by 2 points,
Reiling maintaining a 7 point lead over Pesek, and Pesek 7
more points ahead of Ashley Culpepper, who remained in fourth
from the first vol on with 480 (figure out the other scores,
math major ;). Solid rising throughout the semis was I’m-going-8s-on-everything
Keim, who leaped from 11th to 7th and
is hungry to make up the rest of the deficit tomorrow, much
as she did at this year’s Indoor Nationals, when she
was 30 points down after vols. Megan Gardner, who finished
6th, looks forward to her strong suit, the optional
dives, being repeated in the finals. Newcomer Erin Sones,
who qualified for the trials by placing tenth this past Spring,
finished 8th after what she termed as “a great
optionals list…but I was diving scared in the vols.”
Luckily, she’ll be doing the former again tomorrow <g>
Hey, we saw what happened in the men’s 3M finals yesterday,
right? First fell to fourth, Second remained second, and
5th moved up to win!! We are no doubt in store
for an equally thrilling event tomorrow! And you can tune
in to NBC and watch it J
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