Halfway through their inaugural Mountain Pacific Sports Federation Swimming and Diving Championship last weekend, the Rainbow Wahine led. They finished third, with two meet records in relays at the East Los Angeles College pool and a barrage of big diving finishes a few hundred miles away at the Air Force Academy.
Hawaii’s men, who won Conference USA two years ago, took fifth behind seniors Luca Mazzurana, from Italy, and Luke Hayes, from Australia. Mazzurana collected three medals and junior teammate PJ Gabayeron got the men’s only gold in swimming. Hayes won platform diving, was second on 3-meter springboard and fourth on 1 meter.
Wahine Aimee Harrison, Lauren Hall and Genvieve Bradley, who chose to do their weight training at 6:30 every morning so Hayes could get to his student teaching gig on time, swept the platform points. Harrison, the MPSF Women’s Diver of the Year, also won on the 3 meter and Hall on 1 meter.
Both are freshmen, with Hall a highly recruited high school All-American and Harrison a gifted gymnast relatively new to the sport.
All four head to diving’s Zone E meet, March 14-16 back at the Air Force Academy. The top 50 women and 40 men from all the zonals qualify for the NCAA championship. Essentially, a diver needs to finish in the top five on the springboard or top two on platform to advance.
Hawaii has been there and done that. Mike Brown and Anita Rossing, co-coaches of the year in MPSF women’s diving, have trained 28 NCAA All-Americans in their first 12 years at UH. Six divers have finished in the top four nationally and QiongJie Huang (2005) and Emma Friesen (2008) won national titles.
Last year, Daniella Nero won Hawaii’s 26th and final WAC diving title. Douglas Cohen got Hawaii’s first MPSF diving championship, and 22nd overall.
Nero is finishing her degree and training in Manoa. She won the Swedish national title last month. Amund Gismervik is also here, training for next season. Last summer, the six-time Norwegian junior champ was 24th on platform at the Olympics.
This weekend, Harrison and Friesen are competing at the Canadian Winter Nationals. Friday, Harrison was fourth in the 3-meter preliminaries, won by Friesen ahead of Olympic medalist Jennifer Abel.
"Hawaii’s tradition is pretty much the sole reason for me wanting to come here," says Bradley, a junior from Colorado. "What they’ve done in the past … having such amazing coaches is the best thing I could ask for. A diver is only as good as her coach. If you’re not getting the proper corrections you can’t hope to progress. Between the two of them, they see absolutely everything."
What they saw this year was remarkable progress from all four divers.
Hayes, an extremely popular teammate, taught full-time and still had enough energy to take on everything the coaches asked. Bradley’s passion and fearlessness helped her earn points and her place as Wahine team mom. Hall has been remarkably consistent.
Bradley calls the powerful Harrison "a beast," and Hayes says simply that the Canadian "was the strongest girl" at the MPSF Championship who always left a favorable final impression for the judges.
"She has really good aerial awareness," he says of the two-time champ. "When she comes out of dives she’s got good technique, finishes in a good position. Diving is all about looking good and she looks nice when she dives. Her entries are good."
Hall and Bradley fought back from "mini-catastrophes" on the 3 meter last week. Bradley did a wrong dive and rallied on her final two to salvage sixth. Hall fell off the board and came back to take third.
"Right when I hit the water the first thought in my head was ‘I have to hit my last three,’ " she recalled.
"I learned nothing is over until you’ve done all you can do."
Harrison just got here in January. Her presence has helped push Hall to the point where she might have the best shot of getting to nationals this year, according to the coaches. But …
"Aimee came on strong at the conference meet and dives like that could make it," Brown said. "She’s only been here two months, but she’s picked up a lot of stuff. She was good before the meet and during the meet."
UC Davis won the MPSF women’s title, beating defending champ BYU by 38 points and UH by 63. UNLV also stopped BYU from a repeat on the men’s side. Hawaii was fifth.
UH sophomore Jasmine Alkhaldi, an Olympian for the Philippines last summer, won the women’s 100 free and contributed to both meet records (200 and 400 free relays) with teammates Katie Stover, Sofia Mustelin and Rachel Cote.
