By James Bates
The BYU men''s and women''s diving teams hosted the BYU Diving Invitational this weekend and performed well against the University of Utah and UNLV.
The Cougar men placed first in the 3-meter and platform events on Saturday, Dec. 6. They also placed three divers in the top-five in the 1-meter competition on Friday, Dec. 5.
Senior Justin Beardall won the platform competition and teammates Scott Randall and Jeremy Budge came in close behind in second and third, respectively. Beardall also placed second in the 1-meter and 3-meter competitions.
He lost by less than one point to Sterling Richards of the Utes in the 1-meter, and was narrowly defeated by his teammate, Randall, in the 3-meter.
Meanwhile, the BYU women finished second in the platform event and third in the 1-meter and 3-meter competitions.
They were led by sophomore Ashley Campbell, who finished third in the 1-meter finals with a score of 216.75 and second in the platform. Wendy Poppleton also had a good competition, finishing fourth in the 1-meter with a score of 174.00.
Diving coach Keith Russell said in a news release he was pleased with how his team performed.
'We dived to our standards today,' Russell said on Saturday. 'We already had Justin qualify for Zones and Scott qualified for Zones today. We''re really looking forward to the rest of the season.'
The NCAA Regional Zones Diving competition will take place March 15.
While the diving team was competing in Provo, two BYU swimmers, Zach Anderson and Courtnee Adams, were at the U.S. Open Swim meet in Federal Way, Wash. Anderson swam in the 400-meter free, finishing 12th with a time of 3:59. Meanwhile, Adams finished 18th in the 50-free.
This was the last competition for both teams this year. The next meet will be Jan. 2-3 at the All-America Diving Invite.