March 11, 2006
COLUMBIA, Mo. - Senior Evan Watters took all the pressure off of himself for the rest of the weekend on Saturday morning when he scored 647.50 points on the 1-meter board to finish second and qualify for the 2006 NCAA National Championships.
"You work so hard and give everything you can, and in the end you just hope that it's enough," Mizzou diving coach James Sweeney said. "Evan's such a great competitor and he deserves every bit of this. Right now, he's jumping higher and spinning faster than he ever has in his life."
This marks the second consecutive year that Watters has earned an automatic bid to the national meet with a runner-up finish on the 1-meter board at Zones. In 2005, the San Antonio native went to NCAA Nationals and brought home top-25 finishes on all three boards.
"Evan straight up earned his way into nationals," Sweeney said. "No one laid down for him - he went out and earned it. We talked about approaching each dive as its' own separate meet and about how he had to stay inside the moment. He did a great job of focusing and it really paid off."
A five-time Big 12 Diver of the Month (including two honors this season), Watters has been the Missouri Men's Diver of the Year for the past two seasons. He holds the school record on both the 1 and 3-meter boards.
At NCAA Nationals, to be held in Athens, Ga., from March 23-25, Watters will compete on all three boards, pending his participation on the platform tomorrow. The NCAA rules are set up so that, even though a diver only qualifies on one board at Zones, he competes on each board at nationals that he competes on in the Zone meet.