Luba, Dimicco clinch spots in diving regionals

CLAREMONT, Calif. – The Chapman University men's and women's swimming and diving teams lost in a dual SCIAC meet at Pomona-Pitzer Colleges on Saturday, but the Panther diving team continues to be the story of the season. Freshman divers Joey Luba and Kayla Dimicco qualified outright for the NCAA Division III Regionals with brilliant performances on the 1-meter springboard.

Dimicco became the Chapman's first woman to qualify for regionals with an 11-dive (championship format) school-record score of 434 and captured both the 1-meter and 3-meter competitions on Saturday. Dimicco needed a minimum score of 395 to qualify outright. Her two best dives, garnering scores of 8 and 8.5 from the judges, were an inward dive and reverse dive both in the pike position.

Meanwhile, Luba had already provisionally qualified in a six-dive men's competition the previous week, but could clinch a spot in the regionals with an 11-dive score of 425 from the 1-meter board. He crushed it, earning an overall score of 486.9 (a Chapman record), meriting scores of 8 or higher on six of his dives. His highest-scoring dive came on his sixth attempt: a backward, one and a half somersault with one and a half twist from the free position – a 2.5 degree of difficulty (his toughest dive of the day). Luba earned two more first place finishes from both the 1-meter and 3-meter boards against the Sagehens.

In the lanes, freshman sprinter Jonathan Lee continues to impress with a first-place swim in the 200-yard freestyle with a time of 1:46.6 and a second-place finish in the 100-yard butterfly with a mark of 54.85, swimming both for the first time in SCIAC competition.

Freshman AJ Silva captured first in the men's 200-yard butterfly with a time of 2:02.24 – a season-best.

And on the women's side, senior Kirsten Spicer ranks among the fastest women in the SCIAC, taking first in the 100-yard freestyle with a time of 54.72. That marked a season-best for her, narrowly edging last year's SCIAC Championships time of 54.79, and now sits in the top-10 this season in the SCIAC in this event.

Chapman's men's and women's teams will travel to Cal Lutheran University on Saturday, Jan. 24 at 11 a.m. before returning home to host the University of Redlands and University of La Verne on Jan. 31 at the Allred Pool.

by Doug Aiken
Sports Information Director

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