San Diego Mesa College diver Dylan McQuade, Cypress College diver Nicolo Scornaeinghi and Los Angeles Valley College diver Cierra Center delivered dominant performances at the 2025 Southern California Conference championship qualifiers, held on April 11, at Long Beach City College.
Mcquade and Scornaeighi both dominated the competition, securing first place in the men’s 1-meter and three meter dive championship.
“Diving is a fear based sport, and controlling your nerves is really hard. I’m happy about Lilia’s and Ethan’s and performance; they have been training really hard,” said LBCC diving coach Shane Butler about diver Ethan Gebhardt.
LBCC diver Lilia McAllister showed an outstanding performance for the Vikings, landing fourth place on the women’s 1-meter jump.
“I’ve been training for about one or two months, you just have to do a lot of training to start overcoming the fear of jumping and flopping,” said LBCC diver Ethan Gebhardt.
On the women’s side Cierra Center put on a formidable performance with victories in both the 1-meter (312.25) and 3-meter (328.30).
Orange Coast College diver Madelin Kwok took second place on the women’s championship 1-meter (201.25) and 3-meter (196.25), teammate Madison Steinacker took fifth place on the one meter jump (150.00).
On the men’s side, SMDC diver Dylan McQuade took first place in the 1-meter jump (239.60) and Cypress College diver Nicolo Scornaeinghi emerged as first place diver in the 3-meter jump (262.45).
Riverside Community College diver Zachary McDonald and Cuesta College diver Joseph Tugwell had a tight race for the men’s third place with Tugwell taking third place on the 1-meter jump (197.25) and Mcdonald taking third place on the 3-meter jump (180.35).
“My team did great today, they all did really well after training this season with them, I can see all the improvements they are making, Lily (Burson) did fine today,” said Mt. San Antonio College diving coach Rob McLellan.
Mt. SAC diver Lily Burson took sixth place on the 1-meter jump (155.75) and fifth place for the 3-meter jump (155.40).
The SCC Championship features divers from four different conferences, South Coast, Western State, Orange Empire and Pacific Coast.