Colorado State University Athletics
Thursday, January 29
USAF Academy, CO
10:30 AM
Colorado State
at
Air Force Diving Invitational
Ovesen Places Second on 1-Meter at Air Force
1/29/2026 2:31:00 PM | Women's Swimming & Diving
Freshman improves by nearly 35 points in finals
AIR FORCE ACADEMY – Given a second crack, Sydney Ovesen went ahead and placed second.
Opening the Air Force Diving Invitational on the 1-meter board Thursday, the Colorado State freshman was the 10th out of 12 qualifiers for the finals and put together a 34.8-point improvement on her six-dive set to score 274.60 points and continue her recent surge forward in performance.
Considering her experience and the short turnaround from prelims to finals, CSU diving coach Seth O'Dea found the performance that much more impressive.
"It was just really fun to watch and be a part of and it was also just great experience in general. You know, diving in longer meets is something that we don't do that much throughout the season," he said. "It was probably since midseason the last time that there was this much time in between rounds.
"That's where a lot of people kind of lost some of their consistency. Sydney was fortunate enough to have a couple dives to keep her in that top 12. And then going into finals, less time between dives and staying warm, she was able to put a really solid list together."
Scoring was pretty tight throughout the day, with only four divers hitting the Zones standard of 265.00 throughout the preliminaries and finals, Ovesen being one of them. Three of her dives earned identical scores from the prelims to the finals, but she improved on three of her dives, adding the brunt of her improvement on her fourth dive – a reverse one-and-a-half summersault with a one-and-a-half twist. Her score of 49.4 was 20.8 points better than in the prelims.
A slight adjustment was all it took on the board, but it put on display the season-long adjustment she's made in her approach at the college level.
"I would say that's been her biggest improvement. The most progress she's made is on the mental side of things," O'Dea said. "She came in with the talent and the ability, and what we've been working on is really the positive mental attitude, what we're saying to ourselves, what we're thinking about. And that's where she started making the biggest improvements when she started making the progress on that side of things."
In the preliminaries, Maggie Di Scipio placed 15th with a 217.35, Riley Lee was 20th at 210.95, Jackie Oh in 23rd at 206.40 and Juliana Dodd 29th with a 190.80 in the 37-competitor field.
The setup is similar to the Mountain West Championships, where the consolation finals are competed immediately following the preliminaries. At that meet, the top eight advance to the finals in the evening, giving those divers a break. O'Dea feels it will be valuable experience for his crew, even heading into the 3-meter competition on Friday and the platform on Saturday.
"It was just a long event, and I think this was a necessary experience going into the end of the season. So I think it was definitely a good learning experience to take away something from going into tomorrow just to be better prepared," he said. "I would say I was happy with everyone in terms of just as long as they learn something from today and moving in tomorrow, what we can do better to kind of stay warm in between dives and keep our mind focused."
Friday's preliminaries begin at 10:30 a.m.
Opening the Air Force Diving Invitational on the 1-meter board Thursday, the Colorado State freshman was the 10th out of 12 qualifiers for the finals and put together a 34.8-point improvement on her six-dive set to score 274.60 points and continue her recent surge forward in performance.
Considering her experience and the short turnaround from prelims to finals, CSU diving coach Seth O'Dea found the performance that much more impressive.
"It was just really fun to watch and be a part of and it was also just great experience in general. You know, diving in longer meets is something that we don't do that much throughout the season," he said. "It was probably since midseason the last time that there was this much time in between rounds.
"That's where a lot of people kind of lost some of their consistency. Sydney was fortunate enough to have a couple dives to keep her in that top 12. And then going into finals, less time between dives and staying warm, she was able to put a really solid list together."
Scoring was pretty tight throughout the day, with only four divers hitting the Zones standard of 265.00 throughout the preliminaries and finals, Ovesen being one of them. Three of her dives earned identical scores from the prelims to the finals, but she improved on three of her dives, adding the brunt of her improvement on her fourth dive – a reverse one-and-a-half summersault with a one-and-a-half twist. Her score of 49.4 was 20.8 points better than in the prelims.
A slight adjustment was all it took on the board, but it put on display the season-long adjustment she's made in her approach at the college level.
"I would say that's been her biggest improvement. The most progress she's made is on the mental side of things," O'Dea said. "She came in with the talent and the ability, and what we've been working on is really the positive mental attitude, what we're saying to ourselves, what we're thinking about. And that's where she started making the biggest improvements when she started making the progress on that side of things."
In the preliminaries, Maggie Di Scipio placed 15th with a 217.35, Riley Lee was 20th at 210.95, Jackie Oh in 23rd at 206.40 and Juliana Dodd 29th with a 190.80 in the 37-competitor field.
The setup is similar to the Mountain West Championships, where the consolation finals are competed immediately following the preliminaries. At that meet, the top eight advance to the finals in the evening, giving those divers a break. O'Dea feels it will be valuable experience for his crew, even heading into the 3-meter competition on Friday and the platform on Saturday.
"It was just a long event, and I think this was a necessary experience going into the end of the season. So I think it was definitely a good learning experience to take away something from going into tomorrow just to be better prepared," he said. "I would say I was happy with everyone in terms of just as long as they learn something from today and moving in tomorrow, what we can do better to kind of stay warm in between dives and keep our mind focused."
Friday's preliminaries begin at 10:30 a.m.
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