The drought has ended.

After 18 years of no ISU representation at the NCAA diving championships, junior Hillary Nichols showed up at the zone qualification meet March 11-13 and left with an invitation to the championships, making her only the second ISU diver to do so.

“We were questioning it,” said diving coach Jeff Warrick. “You actually have to see it on paper before you believe it, and once I had a chance to sit down and make sure, it was a big sigh of relief and I was really happy for her.”

“I’m very excited,” Nichols said. “I was hoping this would be the year to do it, and it was really overwhelming.”

Nichols advanced in both the 10-meter platform and 3-meter springboard events.

Teammates Gail Olson and Katie Herman, both seniors, did well at the zone meet but were unable to secure invitations of their own.

“Katie and Gail had some outstanding dives,” Warrick said. “I was real impressed with how they did on 1-meter. To have all three place in the top 10 was great. It was by far the best any of my teams have done.”

Warrick said if one of the Texas divers had finished first or second on platform, her spot from the 1-meter invitees would have gone to Olson, making her the 10th and final qualifier.

“I think they were happy with how conference went and they were able to go out on a high note at this meet,” Warrick said.

At the NCAA championships last weekend, Nichols finished 25th in both the 3-meter springboard and 10-meter platform. She finished 33rd on the 1-meter boards.

“I was very pleased with how she did,” Warrick said. “She placed 25th out of 41 divers and just missed making the semifinals [on 3-meter]. On platform, she hurt her neck a bit in the warmups, and that threw us off on our plan, so she didn’t get to practice her big optional dives. Basically, she did them for the first time in competition since the zone meet.”

Nichols finished better than anyone expected her to at the NCAA diving championships. She overcome several injuries from the beginning of the season to finish with a success.