University of Houston Athletics
Divers Ready to Go at NCAA Championships
3/16/2005 12:00:00 AM | Swimming & Diving
March 16, 2005
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Three University of Houston divers will begin competition at the 2005 NCAA Championships on Thursday at the Boilermaker Aquatic Center on the campus of Purdue University.
Junior captain Azul Almazan and sophomores Anna Kiess and Rachel Gitelson each qualified for the nation's highest collegiate meet after dazzling performances at the NCAA Zone D Diving Championships last weekend in College Station, Texas.
The Cougar trio will compete on the 1-meter springboard on Thursday and the 3-meter board on Friday. The group will then wrap up their stay at the meet with the platform competition on Saturday. The preliminaries for each day are slated to start at 11 a.m., while the finals will begin around 7 p.m.
Gitelson and Kiess are slated to compete in all three diving events at the NCAA Championships, while Almazan will take part in the 3-meter and platform events.
Almazan won the 3-meter competition at the Zone Championships, while Gitelson claimed top honors on the platform on Sunday. Although Kiess did not win an individual championship, the Berlin, Germany, native finished among the Top Three leaders on both the 1-meter and 3-meter springboards.
This marks the third consecutive season in which Almazan will compete at the NCAA Championships, while Kiess will participate in her second straight meet. Gitelson will make her debut at the Championships.
One member of the Cougar group who will not be fazed by the competition at the NCAA Championships is diving head coach Jane Figueiredo. In nearly 15 full seasons at UH, Figueiredo, who has been named the Conference USA Diving Coach of the Year for four consecutive seasons, has guided 19 divers, counting this year's group, to the NCAA Championships. Six of those divers have gone on to win 24 All-American honors.
Players Mentioned
