Rider's Burke Qualifies for NCAA Championships
Rider Sports Information
Buffalo, N.Y. - Sophomore Amanda Burke (Churchville, Pa./William Tennent) became the first Rider diver to qualify for the NCAA Championships with a second place finish on the one-meter board at the NCAA Zone ?A’ Regional, hosted by the University of Buffalo Friday.
“It’s amazing what Amanda did,” said diving coach Dennis Ceppa. “I realistically thought she could place second but actually doing that in a pressure filled competition says a lot about Amanda’s character.”
Burke posted a score of 553.10, finishing only 46 points out of first.
“It is a high pressure meet and Amanda handled it great,” Ceppa said. “Amanda gives her all at practice, makes the necessary changes and works very hard to make her self better. She knows how to train and take what she learned from the meet last year and turn it into an NCAA qualifying performance. You can’t come in and not give 100 percent and expect to make nationals. That is how competitive this event is.”
“I just tried to make each dive and not think about making NCAA’s,” said Burke. “I just focused on staying in the flow and that would take me where I wanted to go. I really wanted to qualify tonight."
The NCAA Championship for the women will be on March 20-22 in Columbus, Ohio, hosted by Ohio State University.
Also for Rider, senior Dylan Korn (Hawthorne, N.Y./Westlake) qualified for the three-meter finals and placed 14th with a score of 510.50. Sophomore Paul Apostolakis (Brooklyn, N.Y./Fort Hamilton) finished 29th on the three-meter with a preliminary round score of 186.95.
Marist senior Devon O'Nalty (East Hartford, Conn.) ended his collegiate diving career by taking 10th place off the one meter board and 16th off the three meter at the NCAA Zone A Regional in Buffalo. The ECAC Diver of the Meet scored a 488.60 off the three meter and a 539.50 off the one meter.