Gabbie Meier
JASPER — Gabbie Meier didn’t have a great start to Tuesday’s Jasper Diving Regional, but she made up for it at the end.
The Columbus East senior bounced back from a couple of subpar early dives to finish third and advance to her fourth consecutive state finals.
“There were two dives that I kind of messed up a little bit, but the other ones were fine,” Meier said. “My third and fourth dives were rough ones, but they are dives I know I can hit, so I’ll be fine for state.”
Meier was in seventh place among the 20 competitors after the first five dives, when the field was cut to 16. She moved up to fifth after eight dives, when the field was cut to 12.
The top eight qualified for state.
“We kind of had a rough start,” East assistant diving coach Nancy Snyder said. “She just continually did a better job diving and stayed more focused.”
Meier finished with a score of 428.15. That was more than 20 points better than her 407.95 when she finished third in last year’s regional and the 408.00 she scored on Saturday when she won her fourth straight sectional title.
“I kind of surprised myself a little bit,” Meier said. “I didn’t think I was going to do as good as I did.”
The state diving competition begins at 9 a.m. Saturday at IUPUI’s Indiana Natatorium. The field will be cut to the top 16 after eight dives, and those 16 will perform their final three dives within the normal break in the swimming finals, which begin at 1 p.m. Saturday.
Meier has placed 16th and 14th at state the past two years. She is hoping to move into the top eight and earn spot on the medals stand.
“I think (that experience) will help me a lot,” Meier said. “I know what the boards are like, how much time you have. Going my freshman year, it was very intimidating, and I didn’t know how it was going to be.”
