ST. JOSEPH, Minn. – Mallory Jarvi knew she had limited chances to qualify for the postseason as her third and final season with the College of Saint Benedict swim and dive team wraps up, so Sunday afternoon, she had an opportunity and she ran with it.
Jarvi scored a 411.25 on the three-meter board Sunday afternoon at Carleton to qualify for the NCAA Central Zone meet. She will be the first CSB swimmer or diver to compete in the postseason since 2002, and for her performance and her newly earned spot in the CSB record books, she is this week’s CSB Athlete of the Week.
In order to qualify for zones on the three-meter board, divers must record a score of 410 or better twice during a regular-season meet or once at the athlete’s conference championship meet. Jarvi – who is graduating a semester early next December and will not compete with the team in 2019-20 – scored a 414.70 at St. Cloud State earlier this month. Her coaches made the decision to send her to Carleton a few days before the conference meet to give her an extra opportunity to score a qualifying mark, and she took full advantage of that opportunity.
Jarvi is the first athlete from the swim and dive team to compete in the postseason since Katie Kuhlmann, who qualified for the 2002 NCAA Championships in the 100 and 200 breaststroke. Jarvi looks to become the second-ever CSB diver to qualify for nationals. Katie Macy – who qualified on both boards for three straight years from 1995-97 – is currently the only diver in CSB history to qualify.
The 2019 Central Zone meet is Friday and Saturday, March 1-2, at Wabash College in Crawfordsville, Ind. There are four zone meets that weekend, and from there the top 29 female divers will advance to the 2019 NCAA Championships March 20-23 in Greensboro, N.C.
First up for Jarvi, however, is the 2019 MIAC Championships, which run this Thursday through Sunday, Feb. 14-17. Jarvi heads into the conference meet with the second-best three-meter, 11-dive score and the sixth-best one-meter, 11-dive score this season. She finished fourth on the three-meter board and eighth on the one-meter board at the 2018 conference meet.
