Kahlia Warner’s consistency on the big stage continues.
Florida’s senior diver from Queensland, Australia, captured her second All-America honor this season at the NCAA meet Friday night. Not only was her final round score of 387.20 good enough to land her a third-place finish in the 3-meter dive, but it also gave the No. 9-ranked Gators swimming and diving team their first top-3 finish this week in Atlanta.
“I’ve worked so hard to get to this moment and it feels amazing,” Warner said in a release. “After winning the prelims, of course I wanted to win the title but just as we’ve seen before, anything can happen in diving and I couldn’t be happier with my finish.”
Warner’s performance was the only bright spot for Florida’s swimming and diving team on Friday night.
During the preliminary rounds, seven different Florida swimmers competed across three different events on Friday afternoon. Needing to finish 16th or higher in order to advance to the final round, none of UF’s swimmers were able to accomplish that feat.
Senior Natalie Hinds, who competed in the 100-yard butterfly was the closest Gator to breaking past the qualifying mark. Her time of 52.41 seconds was good enough to clock her at 17th overall, one spot short of advancing to the final round.
"We would have liked to put more girls into tonight's finals, but that's the difficult part about swimming at the NCAA Championships — we're seeing a lot of records fall and this is an extremely talented field to go up against,” UF swimming coach Gregg Troy said in a release. “We'll get some rest, regroup, and we'll be back and ready to go for tomorrow."
After a disappointing first three days in Atlanta, the Gators find themselves sitting in the middle of the overall standings.
Despite Warner’s performances in both of her competitions this week, the Gators currently are 19th in the overall standings with an overall score of 35.5. In order to break into the top 10 and extend their 15-year-long top-10 finishing streak in the NCAA meet, they will need to overcome a 70.5-point deficit to Missouri and Arizona, who are currently tied at 9th.
With seven events left on their schedule on Saturday, regardless of their overall finish, Warner is the only Florida swimmer who can potentially capture her third All-America honor this week on the platform dive. And possibly, an individual national championship.
“The competitiveness in the field at the NCAA Championships is what makes it so difficult to win here,” Warner said. “The people you’re competing against are just as good if not better than you at times. You can’t expect anything less from the ‘A’ finals at the NCAA Championships. With that, when you are able to do well, it makes it all the more worth your while.”
Contact Sean Doty at sdoty@alligator.org and follow him on Twitter @TheRealSeanDoty.
Khalia Warner dives during Florida’s meet against Auburn on Jan. 23, 2016, in the O’Connell Center.
