Indiana University Athletics
Diving: It's All Indiana
5/18/2015 2:28:00 PM | Men's Swimming and Diving, Women's Swimming and Diving
All four Hoosiers earn spots on the USA Diving World Championships team.
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- The USA World Diving Team is starting to look more and more like an Indiana Hoosier all-star team with each passing day.
Four divers with Indiana ties qualified for four available to represent Team USA at the Final World Championships, July 24-August 2 in Kazan, Russia in Sunday's Individual Time Trials held in Bloomington.
Former Hoosier All-American Amy Cozad and sophomore Jessica Parratto went 1-2 in the women's platform competition. Junior Michael Hixon and Former All-American Darian Schmidt battled back to pass Stanford's Kristian Ipsen and go 1-2 in the men's 3-meter springboard competition.
Those four will be joining sophomore James Connor who will be representing Australia at the World Championships. Former Hoosier diver Emad Abdelatif is still awaiting his chance to qualify with Egypt.
Overall, a strong performance for second-year diving coach Drew Johansen's group. "This program is amazing," Parratto said. "It's going to continue to grow as Drew progresses here. I couldn't be happier with how the team is doing."
Parratto and Cozad dominated the weekend's competition, building a comfortable lead in the preliminary rounds on Friday before coasting to a 1-2 finish on Sunday. By the semifinal round Friday night, it became clear that the Hoosiers were going to be the ones to beat.
Despite being separated by three years in age, Parratto and Cozad have gotten used to competing alongside each other over the recent months.
The two qualified for the world's together in the synchro platform competition at the USA Diving Synchro National Championships in Greensboro, North Carolina just last week.
"We're a team. We're going to be a team through everything," Cozad said. "This is just the first step."
While the women were able to use Friday's preliminary competition to build their lead, Hixon and Schmidt needed strong scores in their final dives to take the two available spots on the spots with Team USA.
Both Hoosiers risked failure with a forward 4.5 somersaults tuck on their penultimate dives.
Hixon said neither was going to even bother to attempt the dive, which ranked as the toughest on the day, until about a week ago.
Johansen convinced both of them it was worth the try, and it paid off. Hixon scored a 102.60 on the dive--his first time breaking 100 in competition--while Schmidt scored a 91.20.
"I knew it was going to be up there," Hixon said. "Coach just sort of said, `You have to believe in this one. This is the one.'"
Johansen was right.
The dive was worth the risk and put both divers on the podium with Schmidt and Hixon both passing Stanford's Kristian Ipsen in the final dives.
"(Johansen has) really allowed me to go to the next level, and I've just matured as a person and an athlete," Schmidt said. "That with Drew's knowledge, and Jenny, his wife, just all those things together really have helped me."
After accepting their trophies and completing a perfect day for IU, Schmidt joked that he'd like to see how an all-Indiana team would fare competing together in world competition.
At this rate, the Hoosiers are putting together a pretty strong argument. "They should," Schmidt joked. "(It would create) a little friendly competition with IU and USA. It would be pretty cool."
