Texas Longhorns Reflect on Late-Night Diving, Swimming Momentum Swing to Stay Right With Cal

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Photo Courtesy: NCAA Media

Just when it looked like Cal might pull away early, the Texas Longhorns saved their best performances for last on Thursday, and made a statement that they weren’t going anywhere.

A dominant performance on 1-meter diving and the 400 medley relay turned a 67-point deficit to 27 down heading into Day 3 of the meet, a stunning 40-point swing.

The Longhorns are still behind the Golden Bears with ground to make up, but the late-night momentum could be a huge factor if it rolls into moving day at the NCAA championships.

In diving, senior Jordan Windle claimed another NCAA title with 435.60 points, but even more importantly, went 1-2 with freshman teammate Noah Duperre (405.45). Duperre took second by two tenths of a point, giving the Longhorns 37 points in the event.

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Texas men leading the 1m podium. Photo Courtesy: Luke Jamroz Photography

“Noah and I have been preparing for this meet. We worked hard and came out on top,” Windle said. “We tried to stay positive. I changed up my list a little bit and everything went up.”

So did the Longhorns’ title chances.

Texas continued the momentum by winning the 400 medley relay in 3:00.23 behind senior Chris Staka, sophomore Caspar Corbeau, senior Alvin Jiang and junior Daniel Krueger.

Cal finished second, so the Texas Longhorns needed to make the most of the final race of the night.

“It has been something we have been looking forward to all year, especially this relay. We have a great group working together and we got it done,” Staka said. “(Diving gave us so much momentum). We are so proud of Noah and Jordan for going 1-2. That was incredible. We tried to keep that going into the rest of the night, and we are so excited for tomorrow.”

Diving has been a huge part of Texas history at NCAA Championships.

The Texas Longhorns have won at least three NCAA titles with the points boost they have received from divers at key moments.

There have been multiple years where divers clinched a title for the Longhorns, and twice in the past decade. In 2010, Texas beat Cal by 30.5 points with divers Drew Livingston and Matthew Cooper racking up 42 points.

The most recent diving coup was in 2018 when Texas was in a three-way battle on the final day with Cal and Indiana.

Jacob Cornish was 14th on 1-meter then in the prelims of platform, he got 16th,” said Texas diving coach Matt Scoggin. “Just 15 minutes later, he was bummed he couldn’t get in the top eight. But I told him if he moved up he could make the difference. He moved up to 10th and got 13 points and we won by 11. It came down to the bitter end. I will never forget that.”

Swimmers can have a swim that makes a difference, too, and Scoggin makes sure his divers relay that support to the swimmers as well.

“Sometimes diving will make the difference. But the way we look at it at Texas is every member of the team can make a difference,” Scoggin said earlier this season. “As a rookie coach, it became very clear to me that anyone can make the difference, swimmer or diver.”

On Thursday, diving and swimming put together key points as Texas tries to overtake Cal for the title.

Two more days remain, but the Texas Longhorns will be in this meet until the end with swimmers and divers making a late difference on a nightly basis.

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