With the Pac-12 championships over and only six days until the NCAA Zone E Diving Championships, the UCLA divers have little time to tap into the mental toughness that they’ve been working on all season long.
Two Bruins, junior Annika Lenz and freshman Éloïse Bélanger have both experienced mental mistakes this quarter that have cost them a first place finish.
On the other hand, both have had season-best performances since the turn of the year.
At the Bruin Diving Invitational in mid-January, Lenz fell just 1.2 points short of the school record she set on the platform last year. She did place within the top five on platform at the Pac-12 championships over the weekend, but she once again missed a dive during her routine.
“At the Bruin Diving Invitational, I did better on platforms because I didn’t have any misses,” Lenz said. “Had I not missed one of my dives, (the set) would’ve been comparable.”
After making the conference championship finals in the 1-meter, 3-meter and platform dives, Lenz will again attempt to qualify for all three finals for only the second time in her career. Although the platform is her best event, the wear and tear from diving from almost 33 feet is too much for her to exclusively practice, she said.
Another diver who will be concentrating on improving the mental side of her dives is Bélanger, who placed within the top four in the 1-meter, 3-meter and platform dives this weekend.
Against California in late January, Bélanger froze on the boards and failed to complete a dive, finishing seventh after leading the 3-meter field for most of the competition. Despite the mistake only happening once, diving coach Tom Stebbins said he is wary of it happening when she’s on a big stage.
“She’s a kid who can really place,” Stebbins said. “We’ve spent a lot of hours trying to get her to a place where she’s comfortable. She’s so driven by her mind and whether she perceives herself as being competitive and whether she feels like there’s a lot of pressure.”
To get physically prepared for the NCAA championships, the Bruins have continued to focus on their weight training.
“The hard part for the team is that when they do (weights), they don’t feel good,” Stebbins said. “The tough part about doing it at the end of the year when you want to feel good and look good – like at the USC dual meet – is that there’s a lot of pressure to perform at a high level.”