East’s Day headed to state in diving

Columbus East sophomore Gavin Day, pictured with diving coaches Cordell Glass and Nancy Snyder, qualified for the state finals with a fifth-place finish in Tuesday’s Jasper Diving Regional.

Submitted photo

JASPER — Gavin Day and his Columbus East diving coaches couldn’t have been more thrilled with his performance in Tuesday’s Jasper Diving Regional.

The Olympian sophomore scored a personal-best 401.55 for 11 dives to finish fifth and qualify for his first state finals.

“I think I scored pretty consistently good,” Day said. “I had a few OK dives. I was pretty happy.”

Day’s score was 32 points higher than in Saturday’s East Central Sectional, where he finished second, and 52 1/2 points better than in last years regional, where he took 12th.

“Last year, I didn’t really expect to get to regional,” Day said. “But this year, I expected to make it to state.”

The top eight qualify for state, and Day was in fifth place throughout almost the entire competition. New Albany’s Colin Kruer won with a 467.80.

“(Day) had a fantastic night,” East diving coach Nancy Snyder said. “He hit almost every dive better than I’ve seen him. In practice this week, he figured out how to come out of his dives, and he was really consistent with him.”

“It’s kind of surprising,” Day added. “I’ve been working really hard. After high school practice, I’ll go to club practice at IU and dive there. I’ve been putting in a lot of work and hope to get better.”

Day joins senior teammate Brady Beyer, who qualified in two individual events, and juniors Judah Nickoll and Cavan Stilson and sophomore Misha Machavariani, who joined Beyer on a pair of state-qualifying relay teams. The swimming preliminaries start at 6 p.m. Friday at IUPUI’s Indiana University Natatorium, and the swimming finals and consolations start at 1 p.m. Saturday.

The diving prelims get underway at 9 a.m. Saturday. The 32-diver field will be cut to 20 after five dives, then to 16 after eight dives. The top 16 will perform their final three dives during the break in the swimming finals in the afternoon.

“I’m pretty confident in my skills,” Day said. “There’s definitely room to improve. I want to make it past the first cut.”