Brandon Watson Wins Men’s One-Meter at AT&T National Diving Championships

COLLEGE STATION, Texas, August 12. BRANDON Watson (Riverton, Utah) captured the first title of the 2010 AT&T National Diving Championships with a victory in the men's 1-meter competition Wednesday night.

Watson, competing in his first USA Diving nationals since the spring of 2007, scored 398.85 points to win his first national title.

Landon Marzullo (Worthington, Ohio/Tallahassee, Fla.) finished second at 387.60, and Matt Cooper (Bethesda, Md./Austin, Texas) of Longhorn Aquatics picked up the bronze with 383.70 points.

Watson, who represents BYU Cougar Diving, was in third place after the fourth of six rounds but scored mostly 9s on his front 1 ½ with two twists in the fifth round. That gave him a slight lead – just .25 points ahead of Marzullo – heading into the final round. Watson scored 69 points on his final dive, a reverse 1 ½ with 2 ½ twists to secure the victory.

"I'm taken away. One-meter hasn't been my strong event, and everyone else dove great today. I saw on the last dive that there was less than a point between me and Landon, so that got me pretty excited," said Watson, who will also compete in Thursday's men's 3-meter preliminaries. "This is my first year back in diving, and I'm blessed to dive this well today."

In other action Wednesday, Cassidy Krug (Coraopolis, Pa./Stanford, Calif.) was the top finisher in the women's 3-meter semifinals to lead the field of 12 divers who have advanced to Saturday's finals. Krug score 347.25 points, with former University of Texas diver Summer Allman (Lansing, Mich.) taking second at 335.40. Four other divers with Texas ties advanced to the finals, including 2010 junior national champions Kaylea Arnett (Spring, Texas) and Kassidy Cook (The Woodlands, Texas) of The Woodlands Diving Academy; Maren Taylor (Arlington, Va./Austin, Texas) of Longhorn Aquatics; and Kathryn Connolly (San Antonio, Texas) of San Antonio Divers.

The AT&T National Diving Championships continue through Sunday, August 15. Thursday's competition features women's 1-meter preliminaries and finals and men's 3-meter preliminaries and semifinals.

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