March 8, 2012

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.-- Stanford freshman Kristian Ipsen scored a 116-point victory to win the 3-meter to open up the Zone E Regional Championships on Thursday, scoring a 930.90.

Ipsen was one of four Cardinal divers in the top-10 on the men's side, while Stephanie Phipps was fifth in the 1-meter.

Since records have been online, going back to 2006, just five divers had hit the 800-point plateau, Ipsen led three in 2012, finishing ahead of BYU's Brandon Watson (814.60) and Arizona State's Constantin Blaha (812.95). Watson and Blaha both scored 800's in 2010.

After scoring the top preliminary score of 439.20, Ipsen tallied 9.0's in four of his six finals dives, topping out at 91.80 points on a reverse 1 1/2 somersault and  3 1/2 twist to close out the day. After briefly dropping to second after four dives, Ipsen nailed a forward 2 1/2 somersault with two twists for 86.70 points and remained ahead for the final two dives.

Ipsen was the only diver to have four dives with a degree of difficulty of 3.4 or higher, Watson had three and Blaha had two.

All five Stanford men reached the final 18 of the 3-Meter with Taylor Sishc (seventh, 698.05), Noah Garcia (eighth, 672.75) and Connor Kuremsky (ninth, 668.35) finishing in the top-10. Dhruv Tyagai was the last man in, finishing 18th in the prelims, before rebounding to finish 11th (651.80).

Phipps moved up two spots from her preliminary score of 267.95 and placed fifth in the 18-woman finals with an overall tally of 558.70. The sophomore was just 10 points behind New Mexico's Gabby Erickson (568.80) for fourth place. Phipps was just six points of the top-five in the preliminary round. Freshman Sloane Brazina in her first Zones, was 37th.

The Zone Regional Championships runs through Saturday with seven women and eight men selected from this region, advancing to the NCAA Championships.

Previous 800-point scorers in the 3-Meter at Zones included: Riley McCormick, ASU (826.10, 2011), Brandon Watson, BYU (813.05, 2010), Constantin Blaha, Arizona State (806.00, 2010), Michele Benedetti, ASU (807.95, 2009), Joona Puhakka, ASU (879.95, 2006)

Thursday
Full Scores: https://secure.meetcontrol.com/divemeets/system/meetresultsext.php?meetnum=1993

Men's 3-Meter: Finals: Winner-- Kristian Ipsen, Stanford  930.90 (439.20-prelims), 7. Sishc, Stanford 698.05 (335.55-prelims) 8. Garcia, Stanford 672.75 (311.35-prelims), 9. Kuremsky, Stanford 668.35 (337.75-prelims), 11. Tyagi, Stanford 651.80 (287.15-prelims) 18. Reinhard, Stanford 601.60 (310.05-prelims)

Women's 1-Meter: Finals: Winner-- Victoria Ishimatsu, USC 626.80, 5. Phipps, Stanford 558.70 (267.95-prelims),  37. Brazina, Stanford, 223.30-prelims