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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Friday, March 13, 2009

Friesen qualifies for NCAA 3-meter

Advertiser Staff

Hawaii news photo - The Honolulu Advertiser

Emma Friesen

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Hawai'i junior Emma Friesen, the NCAA 1-meter champion last year, won the 3-meter event at yesterday's NCAA Zone E Diving Qualifier in Austin, Texas. The win qualifies her for another trip to nationals next week in College Station, Texas.

Friesen also won the preliminaries yesterday, with 300.5 points. She held on to her lead through the final round, finishing with 594.2 points, about three more than the runner-up. The rest of the top five all came from Pac-10 schools — UCLA, USC and Stanford.

UH teammate Daniella Nero, a freshman from Sweden, was 25th out of 40 in the preliminary round, with 224.0 points. She did not advance after missing a reverse 2 1/2.

Douglas Cohen, a UH freshman from Colorado, did advance to the men's 1-meter final, with 275.25 points. He was 11th in the final round with a total of 539.10 points. Cohen took second in the 1-meter, 3-meter and platform events at the Conference USA Championships this year.

Friesen won the 1- and 3-meter titles at the recent Western Athletic Conference Championships, broke the conference 1-meter record and was named WAC Diver of the Year.

Diving continues today, with Nero and Friesen on the 1-meter and Cohen on 3-meter. Nero and Cohen compete on platform tomorrow.