NCAA Men’s Championships: Lyle Yost Risks It, Reaps Reward of 1-Meter Crown
By the fifth round of 1-meter diving Thursday night, Lyle Yost figured his originally scheduled sixth and final dive wasn’t going to cut it.
That one carried a 2.6 degree of difficulty. Beneath the “in case of emergency break glass” sign in his program was a forward two-and-a-half twister. And the way that Stanford’s Jack Ryan and Andrew Capobianco of Indiana were hitting around him, the top seed out of prelims knew he needed to go big.
“It’s kind of a high-risk, high-reward situation,” Yost said. “It’s a really difficult dive, but if you hit it, it can get you a lot of points.”
Yost nailed it, needed 71 points and getting 75 to tally 443.95 and get the win at the University of Minnesota’s Jean K. Freeman Aquatic Center.
He was pretty confident when he hit the water that he’d done what he needed.
“It’s a really hard dive. It felt good,” he said. “There’s no way to know until the judges put their sores in, but I came out and the crowd was going wild and something felt right.”
Capobianco was second for the second straight year with 439.45, and Ryan finished third in 429.25.
Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick
Yost was fifth last year and sixth in 2021. His is the first 1-meter men’s title for an Ohio State diver since Patrick Jeffrey in 1988 and the first men’s diving title of any kind since 2016 (Zhipeng Zeng on platform in 2016.) Ohio State won 27 titles on 1-meter from 1937-75 as one of the earliest dominant diving programs in the nation.
“Ohio State is a legendary program, swimming and diving both,” Yost said. “It’s part of the reason that I chose Ohio State, and to become part of that legacy, it’s really special.”
The leading trio separated from the pack early in the final. Yost led through five rounds, though Ryan applied pressure in the fifth with a reverse 2.5 that scored 9s for the Stanford sophomore. Capobianco then nailed an inward two-and-a-half in the sixth and final round to the tune of 9s and a score of 86.70 points to jump past Ryan.
That triggered the change from Yost, but no panic, as a diver who wants to know what the others around him are doing.
“I knew that it was close, that Andrew had a 3.4 as his last dive, and I knew a 2.6 wasn’t going to cut it,” he said. “The only way that was going to be competed is if I had a sizeable lead. It was pretty much decided as soon as the fifth round was over that it was going to go with the big guns.”
Anton Down-Jenkins, who was eighth last year, sat seventh after four rounds but surged to finish fourth in 398.45. USC’s Shangfei Wang was fifth. Texas’ Nick Harris finished seventh, between the Texas A&M duo of Victor Povzner and Allen Bottego.
Miami’s Maxwell Flory won the consolation final with a score of 384.95 after the Miami senior had been just 15th in prelims. Texas’ Brendan McCourt gave the Longhorns two scorers, though he slid from 10th in prelims to 14th overall. He was a spot ahead of Florida’s Leonardo Garcia, who had been 11th in prelims.
Three of last year’s championships finalists didn’t make it back this year: Jonathan Suckow of Columbia went from fourth last year to 22nd; Indiana’s Quinn Henninger, sixth as a freshman, finished 30th; Bjorn Markentin of Arizona slid from seventh last year to 36th in prelims.
Thursday was all about Yost, though, who rose to the occasion in the biggest moment.
“For me, it’s fuel for the fire,” he said. “If I see Andrew and Jack both hit awesome dives before me, that gets me pumped up to get up there and do the next best thing. That stakes are higher, and that’s when I am at my best, when the lights are bright.”
Event 6 Men 1 mtr Diving
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Meet: M 473.75 3/28/2013 Kristian Ipsen, Stanford
Name Year School Prelims Finals Points
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=== Championship Final ===
1 Yost, Lyle SR Ohio St 392.95 443.95 20
2 Capobianco, Andrew SR Indiana 391.00 439.45 17
3 Ryan, Jack SO Stanford 386.70 429.45 16
4 Down Jenkins, Anton SR UNC 372.50 398.45 15
5 Wang, Shangfei SO USC 366.80 391.70 14
6 Povzner, Victor JR TAMU 376.30 390.00 13
7 Harris, Nicholas FR Texas 377.95 381.80 12
8 Bottego, Allen SO TAMU 367.70 330.50 11
=== Consolation Final ===
9 Flory, Maxwell SR Miami 345.25 384.95 9
10 Abadia Garcia, Adrian SO LSU 355.35 376.15 7
11 Zawadzki, Noah SR VT 352.95 373.50 6
12 Matthews, Jack SO Ohio St 361.35 358.20 5
13 Duperre, Noah JR Texas 352.70 357.10 4
14 McCourt, Brendan JR Texas 360.70 348.75 3
15 Garcia, Leonardo SR Florida 356.20 328.15 2
16 Reed, Dylan SR Pittsburgh 345.10 322.10 1
Men - Team Rankings - Through Event 6
1. California 150 2. Texas 141
3. Arizona St 126 4. NC State 119.5
5. Florida 105 6. Indiana 81
7. Stanford 68 8. Tennessee 57
9. Texas A&M 44 10. Louisville 43
10. Auburn 43 12. Georgia 36
13. Virginia Tech 30 14. Ohio St 29.5
15. Virginia 27 16. Alabama 26
17. Lsu 22 18. Wisconsin 19
19. Notre Dame 17 20. UNC 15
21. Southern California 14 22. Miami 9
23. Missouri 6 24. Princeton 4
24. Michigan 4 26. Georgia Tech 3
27. Pittsburgh 1
