After Saturday's swimming and diving meet against Illinois State University, Ball State University sophomore Lisa Maertin stayed to work on a new dive.
As she stood on the edge of the 3-meter board, she bounced into the air but instead of completing the dive, she jumped backward. With her coach Laura Seibold-Caudill and a couple other Cardinals encouraging her, Maertin tried again and again and again, each time stopping before she took the leap into the pool. Finally, after several unsuccessful attempts, Maertin jumped, flipped through the air and kicked out her legs and nailed the dive.
The dive capped the day for Maertin, who qualified for the zone qualifying meet, a qualifier to the NCAA championships, in the Cardinals' 192-106 victory against the Redbirds.
She said she will definitely use the new dive when it is time for the zone qualifying meet.
"This is something I need to compete," she said.
Senior Stephanie Paul also qualified for the meet with her victory in the three-meter diving with a score of 297.23. Maertin finished with a score of 266.40 in her victory in the 1-meter diving.
Seibold-Caudill said making the zone qualifying meet is like making the NCAA tournament in basketball.
Overall, the Cardinals' won 13 of the 16 events in the meet. They began the meet with wins in the first 10 events, including taking first and second in the first six events.
"By us charging out and winning the first three or four events, I think that kind of intimidated them right off the bat," Seibold-Caudill said.
Of the three events they lost, the Cardinals lost two of them by less than half a second including sophomore Sarah Kehe losing by 0.04 seconds in the 100-yard fly. Kehe also came in second in the 200-yard freestyle, losing to teammate freshman Maria Gramelspacher by 0.05 seconds.
Gramelspacher also won the 200-yard individual medley, an event she had not swam this season.
Erika Paul also led the Cardinals in events won at the meet with two, the 100-yard and 200-yard breaststroke.
Senior Addison Del Rio won the 500-yard freestyle and senior Michelle Huang won the 100-yard freestyle.
Junior Lauren Harger won the 100-yard breaststroke and teammate Megan Ploetz won the 200-yard butterfly.
Sophomore Mary Ehresman won the 1,000 yard freestyle and freshman Katie Bylsma won the 50-yard freestyle.
The Cardinals team of Erika Paul, Harger, Gramelspacher and Bylsma also won the 200-yard medley relay.
Co-coach Bob Thomas said he told the team that if it had a big enough lead after the first half of the meet he would allow the swimmers to compete in different events.
In the 500-yard freestyle, senior Addison Del Rio and sophomore Emily Hurst took first and second though they had not competed in the event before for Ball State.
Thomas said he thought Saturday's meet was one of the best the Cardinals had all season.
"I thought I beat them up a little bit in their training so I was a little bit surprised," he said. "I didn't expect them to go as fast as they did."
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