Day 3 of the NCAA Zone Diving ended with the 10-meter platform event; the women competed in the morning, the men in the afternoon.

Iowa sophomore Calli Head finished seventh, scoring 279.80 in the preliminary round and 279.5 in the final round, which secured her a spot in the NCAA finals.

“In prelims, I hit my gainers a lot better than normal, and that gave me a lot of confidence,” Head said. “But overall, I dove really consistently, and I never had any big misses.”

In the afternoon, junior Addison Boschult was solid as he placed second with a preliminary score of 387.7 and a finals score of 408.9.

“I had to really hit my inward 3.5, and after that, hitting my back 3.5 was big for me as well,” Boschult said. “Getting above 70 points really helped me a lot.”

Diving coach Todd Waikel noted that hitting the inward 3.5 dive was important.

“His inward 3.5 was a dive he struggled with, and he killed it in the meet,” Waikel said. “Once he got past that dive, I felt pretty confident for the rest of the day.”

Waikel was concerned with Boschult keeping his consistency from the preliminary rounds to the final rounds, considering that both rounds count toward the overall points. Once Boschult hit his inward 3.5, those concerns faded away.

Boschult’s NCAA finals qualification was made even sweeter because of how quickly Boschult adopted platform diving.

“He was basically a 1-meter diver only, and he liked towers, and he showed that he like towers early on, and he had zero experience in it,” Waikel said. “To see him come in and shine like that — it’s just a testament to his character and his training and his passion.”

Boschult’s success story was also special to Waikel because Waikel’s first year with Iowa was Boschult’s freshman year, so the two grew together as the team grew stronger.

Senior Joelle Christy, who qualified for NCAAs on Tuesday, was also excited to make the cut.

“I feel really relieved,” Christy said. “I’m really excited to have made NCAAs as a fifth-year senior, so I’m happy to finish off my career by going to the NCAAs.”

Christy qualified by placing eighth in 1-meter diving, scoring 294.10 in the preliminaries followed by a score of 304.9 in the finals.

With Christy, Head, and Boschult heading to the NCAAs, it’s no wonder that Waikel was pleased with this divers’ performances.

“It’s funny, because the first day of competition we got a rough start, and we just got it together and regrouped, and I felt like we were just getting better every day, and it all came together today,” Waikel said. “As a coach I couldn’t be more proud.”

Follow @RodEngblom on Twitter for news, updates, and analysis about the Iowa women’s swimming and diving team