Mishawaka Diving Regional: Hodge Done, Ridge Pair Sizzles
MISHAWAKA – A Northridge diving duo made Tuesday’s Mishawaka Diving Regional their personal showcase while Tippecanoe Valley’s Tiphanie Hodge saw her season come to a close.
Northridge’s fantastic tandem of Sara Troyer and Mary Grossman were just that, Troyer again the toast of the night with another whopping victory with 531.1 points, Grossman in second place at 478.3. Troyer, who shattered the Northern Lakes Conference and Northridge Sectional records this season, enters Saturday’s competition the highest scorer from the four regionals, and the only diver to top 500 points Tuesday night. Troyer won last year’s diving regional and finished third at the state finals.
Grossman placed 12th at last year’s state finals, but will enter the weekend as the No. 3 seed, only behind Troyer and Homestead’s Jamie Brenn, who was runner-up at the state finals a year ago.
The Northridge Sectional saw all four of its regional qualifiers make the state finals, with Concord’s Jena Lechlitner scoring 394.15 points for fourth place, and Elkhart Central’s Hadley Malloy scoring 371.35 points for seventh place. The top eight individuals make the state preliminaries.
Joining the state group from the Mishawaka Regional are Bailey Betzer of Penn, Lindsay Gizzi of South Bend Adams, Darian McAdow of Rensselaer, and Moira Glowacki of Munster.
Tippecanoe Valley’s Tiphanie Hodge reached the regional round for the first time. The Valley junior scored 164.5 points before bowing out in 20th place. Fellow Warsaw Sectional qualifiers were Isabelle Ahlenius of Culver Academy (247.55, 13th), Tristan Pearson of Plymouth (216.9, 18th) and Gracie Pearson of Pioneer (170.3, 19th).
The IHSAA Girls Swim State begins Friday night with swim preliminaries starting at 6 p.m. at IUPUI. Diving will begin at 9 a.m. with preliminaries, and wrap up with the finals as part of the swim finals, set to begin at 1 p.m.