Vallinger makes a splash at Mount

By JOHN KOVACH

kovach@vindy.com

ALLIANCE

Junior diver Mary Vallinger of Mount Union College from Poland High has completed another successful season.

Except that this year she will not be competing in the NCAA Division III Women’s National Swimming and Diving Championships, like she did last year.

Vallinger, who gained All-American honors in both 1- and 3-meter diving last year at the national meet as a sophomore, received word recently that she did not qualify this year in either event.

Last year at the national, she placed 12th in 3-meter and 13th in 1-meter to rank among the top 16 in each event who gained All-American honors.

But despite being bypassed for national competiton, Vallinger has consolation in knowing that she won All-Ohio Athletic Conference honors for the third straight year in the 3- and 1-meter diving events.

And that she was among the top 51 divers in the nation who met qualifying standards to apply for competition in the national meet, which will be held March 17-20 at the University Aquatic Center in Minneapolis, Minn.

Vallinger submitted the 1- and 3-meter scores she achieved in this year’s OAC Championships held Feb. 18-20 at the University of Akron, as well as some her top scores for dual meets.

All of the scores she submitted met qualifying standards, which is required to make application for the national meet.

At the OAC meet, she won her third straight 3-meter title and All-OAC honors with a school-record 449.9 points, and also earned All-OAC for the third straight year in 1-meter diving with a second-place 414.70.

She helped her team to 224 points for runner-up behind Ohio Northern (256.5).

“The 449.9 was my highest 3-meter score ever,” said Vallinger, the daughter of Frank and Gloria Vallinger. “But my highest 1-meter was last year in the OAC meet.”

She also sent in a video of her diving which is required by the NCAA committee that selects the divers for the natiional meet.

But she doesn’t know why she wasn’t selected this year.

“They don’t pick only by scores. They mainly pick by watching the videos. They have a committee that watches the videos. They do look at the points and all the stuff, but the judging is subjective. But they don’t just pick by points,” explained Vallinger.

“Only one video per person is allowed to be sent in, and there can be only six dives on the video.”

Vallinger said that “51 divers met the qualifying times in each diving event, and of those 51 [the committee] selected 22. They are subjective decisions by the committee and it just depends on what they value in a diver.”

Vallinger said that 3-meter diving is her best event.

“I feel like I score better in 3-meter diving,” said Vallinger. Because, “You have more time to get to the water so that [you] can do better things. The height helps out. One meter is short.”

Vallinger explained that she has to make 11 dives in each event during competition .

“Five are required while the other six are optional. You could do whatever dives you want to in optional,” said Vallinger, noting that dives are judged and scored with points.

“Usually the coaches do the judging but this year during our meets we had both officials and coaches,” said Vallinger, who is majoring in psychology and has a 3.5 grade-point average.

Vallinger is one of three area women on the Mount Union swimming team. The other two are sophomores Kayla Aldan and Kamiren Veisz, both from Boardman High, in the middle distances and as a sprints, respectively.

Aldan is a biology major and the daughter of Jack and Rose Aldan, Veisz is the daughter of Ken and Patricia Veisz.