March 16, 2009

From Navy Sports Information

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Navy's Jon Galinski (Sr., Phoenix, Md.) posted a score of 613.25 to win the platform competition Sunday at the NCAA Zone `A' Diving Championship in Buffalo, N.Y. The first-place finish qualifies Galinski for the NCAA Championship that will be held March 26-28 in College Station, Texas.

"I'm very excited for and equally proud of Jon," said Navy diving coach Joe Suriano, who has now seen his men's divers qualify for 18 NCAA Championship meets during his 31-year tenure at Navy. "He has come a long way during his four years at Navy and it is great that he will be able to end his career by competing at the national championship."

"I've been working to accomplish this for four years," said Galinski. "I'm ecstatic and honored to be able to have the opportunity to compete against the best divers in the country at the NCAA Championship. For a collegiate diver, that is the pinnacle of competition."

Galinski led the field by 15 points after the preliminary rounds of diving, then was able to maintain his position throughout the finals. One of the keys to his success in the finals was his inward two-and-one-half effort. It was the dive that cost him a trip to the 2008 NCAA Championship, it would be his penultimate dive Sunday and it came right after he had struggled with a dive.

"I knew what I did wrong last year when I tried this dive, and I have been working on it all year," said Galinski. "When it came time to do the dive today, I wasn't even thinking about how it went a year ago. I was confident that I could hit it."

He scored very well on the dive and then received scores of 7 across the board on his final effort to win the event by 13 points and lock up a trip to the national championship.

"Jon had a very high degree of difficulty list of dives today," said Suriano. "He was steady and consistent throughout the competition."

In addition to Galinski's first-place showing, Navy's Olaf Olson (So., Bainbridge Island, Wash.) placed fifth on the day with a total score of 539.80 points.