So far, so good.
Zach Cooper, competing in the men’s 10-meter platform synchronized diving and 10-meter platform diving at this week’s U.S. Olympic Diving Trials in Indianapolis, still has a shot at competing in the 2016 Summer Games.
Cooper and partner Max Showalter are in third place in 10-meter synchronized following Sunday’s semifinals at the Indiana University Natatorium on the IUPUI campus. The finals are at 7 p.m. Thursday.
Cooper, an 18-year-old Greenwood resident, and Showalter, a Purdue diver, have a cumulative score of 698.46;4 following the preliminaries and semifinals. The team of David Boudia and Steele Johnson are the leaders — and heavy favorites — with a total of 835.56;2.
Ryan Hawkins and Toby Stanely are in third with 710.58;2. The fourth and final of the contending teams, Benjamin Bramley and Maxwell Flory, have a score of 666.00;0.
Thursday’s winning pair will make the U.S. Olympic Team and compete in the Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro. Opening ceremonies are Aug. 5.
Although Boudia and Steele are expected to easily win the synchronized event, Cooper will get another opportunity this week to make the U.S. Olympic Team.
Cooper competes in today’s 10 a.m. preliminaries of 10-meter platform. If he advances, he’ll compete in tonight’s 7 p.m. semifinals.
The 10-meter platform finals are 6:40 p.m. Sunday. The top two divers from that event make the U.S. team.
Clute earns All-American honors
Indiana University senior Sydney Clute earned first-team All-American honors following a fourth-place finish in women’s pole vault at the recent NCAA Division I Outdoor National Track and Field Championships in Eugene, Oregon.
A 2012 Center Grove High School graduate, Clute secured her best-ever finish at the national championships with a vault of 4.30 meters.
Her effort capped a remarkable season during which she won the Big Ten Outdoor championship at Lincoln, Nebraska, where she set school, facility and Big Ten records.
Clute’s previous best outdoors finish at nationals was eighth in 2014. She redshirted last year and did not compete.
Smeathers lifts South Team
Madison Smeathers, a 2016 Center Grove graduate, helped the South Team win the recent North/South All-Star Tennis Cup championship at Marian University.
Smeathers played doubles for the Trojans but competed in singles in the All-Star tournament. She was one of five members of the South team to win all three of their matches.
All-Star tennis skills notwithstanding, Smeathers will continue her athletic career as a scholarship volleyball player at Ohio State University.
Smeathers was the Daily Journal’s 2015 Johnson County Volleyball Player of the Year.
Angling for the Hall
Larry Angle, former head basketball coach at Indian Creek High School, has been selected to the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame Board of Directors.
A longtime varsity coach who was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2010, Angle accrued 375 wins in a career that spanned stops at Rusvhille, Carmel, Greenfield-Central and Indian Creek.
He retired from coaching after the 2004 season at Indian Creek.
FC packs ’em in
With approximately 1,000 students, Franklin College isn’t on the high end of NCAA Division III enrollment.
But the school is in on the high end of attendance for athletics events.
Six of Franklin’s varsity teams were among the national Division III home attendance leaders for the 2015-16 school year.
Leading the way was women’s basketball, which ranked seventh with an average attendance of 691 fans. The Grizzlies were 9-1 in 10 home games.
Next was women’s soccer, which ranked ninth nationally with an average of 335. Franklin was 7-1 in eight home matches.
Next was volleyball, which ranked 10th with an average of 434. The Grizzlies were 5-2 at home.
Franklin’s men’s soccer team ranked 20th nationally with an average of 367 fans. Football ranked 22nd with an attendance average of 3,245, followed by men’s basketball, which ranked 33rd with a home average of 740.
