FEDERAL WAY, Wash. – San Diego State senior Valentina Lopez Arevalo punched her ticket to the national meet in the 3-meter springboard on Monday after finishing sixth in the finals at the NCAA Zone E Diving Championships inside Weyerhaeuser King County Aquatics Center.
Lopez Arevalo posted an aggregate 591.65 points for the day, vaulting into sixth place after placing 10th in the preliminaries with a score of 286.75, as the top eight finishers in the event advance to next week’s NCAA Women’s Swimming and Diving Championships, set for March 19-22, at the same facility in suburban Seattle.
A native of Zapopan, Jalisco, Mexico, Lopez Arevalo will be making her second appearance on the national stage after qualifying for the NCAA meet as a freshman from the platform tower. In addition, her performance gives the Aztec swim and dive program at least one national qualifier in each of the last five seasons and six of the last seven years.
Lopez Arevalo solidified her eventual sixth-place finals finish after posting her highest score of the round with 63.00 points in her third dive, the 305C, a reverse 2 ½ somersault tuck with a 2.8 degree of difficulty.
The SDSU contingent also included Summer Westmoreland (219.15) and Alina Skrocki (216.45), who finished 43rd and 45th in the preliminaries, respectively.
Lopez Arevalo, Westmoreland and Skrocki continue their stay at the NCAA Zone E Championships on Tuesday when they compete from the platform height, starting at 11:30 a.m. PT with the preliminary round. A link to live results via DiveMeets will be available on GoAztecs.com.
NCAA Zone E Championships
Federal Way, Wash.
3-Meter Springboard Results (Finals)
Top Eight of 18
- Kate Miller (USC), 639.30
- Alexia Johnson (BYU), 623.90
- Violet Williamson (Cal), 613.75
- Brooke Earley (Arizona), 598.60
- Callie Eaglestone (Utah), 597.15
- Valentina Lopez Arevalo (SDSU), 591.65
- Eden Cheng (UCLA), 589.80
- Anna Lemkin (Stanford), 588.00
