ISU diving heads to Iowa City for CyHawk matchup

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Courtesy of ISU Athletic Department

Ames native Maggie James will be joining the ISU swimming and diving team this fall as a freshman, Iowa State announced on June 29, 2015. James was a four-year letterwinner and a three-time state diving champion for the Little Cyclones of Ames High School. 

Rachel Given

The divers are back on the road for another invite this weekend, heading to Iowa City to compete in the Hawkeye Invite. The meet will run similar to a championship meet. 

At the last invite in Kansas, Iowa State took first and second in one- and three-meter and platform diving, respectively. Freshman Maggie James came back from an injury and placed high on all three boards.

“I think [James] did well down there [at the Kansas Dive Invite] and I think she’s going to keep doing even better,” said diving coach Jeff Warrick. “This might be more of an eye-opener from the standpoint of there being a lot more teams and a lot more divers. It’s going to feel like an even bigger meet experience, so we’ll see how she reacts to that. In the past, she’s always shined most when the pressure’s on.”

Warrick also feels it can be a shock to the divers when competing in three-day meets because they’re used to competing in one-day meets, but feels the divers will be OK.

“We talked about that and they definitely feel like this is going to be helpful to them,” Warrick said.

The Hawkeye Invite will have both men’s and women’s swim and dive teams at the Campus Recreation and Wellness Center Natorium in Iowa City. Iowa State is one of three teams only competing in the diving portion of the event and will not be scored separately from those teams competing in both swimming and diving.

Iowa State has yet to meet with any of the 10 teams this season, but this invite will allow the divers to see future competition against Iowa and Northern Iowa.

The invitational will start Friday and end Sunday. Preliminaries will start at 10 a.m. each day, while finals will start at 6 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and 4 p.m. Sunday.