SAN JUAN – Deidre Freeman (Grinnell, Iowa\/Iowa City, Iowa) and Samantha Pickens (Murrysville, Pa.\/Tucson, Ariz.) have advanced to the women\u2019s 3-meter finals at the FINA Puerto Rico Grand Prix after their performances in Thursday\u2019s preliminary and semifinal rounds. The finals are set for Saturday.<\/p>\n
Freeman scored 285.90 points to tie Colombia\u2019s Diana Pineda for first in semifinal A. On a windy day in San Juan, Freeman led or tied for the lead for the entire semifinal. She opened the contest with 61.50 points on a back 2 \u00bd pike and followed up with 63 points on her reverse 2 \u00bd pike in the second round. Pineda caught up with her after round four, but Freeman never relinquished the top score.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve dove in wind before, but this was a little windier than I\u2019ve dove in before. I was just trying to practice my mental toughness and improve my mental game in that regard. If I can dive in this, I can dive in anything,\u201d Freeman said. \u201cI was just trying to stay relaxed and do what I know I how to do because I know once I get to the end of the board and I\u2019m ready to go, I\u2019ll be fine.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pickens finished with 277.20 points to place second behind China\u2019s Wu Chunting (298.80) in semifinal B. Pickens was in fifth place after three of five rounds but moved up in the standings after scoring 61.50 points on her reverse 2 \u00bd pike in round four and 64.50 points on her front 2 \u00bd with one twist in the last round to move her into second place and a spot in the finals.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was really, really windy out there, but everyone was dealing with it so I guess it was just who could deal with it the best. It was a little rough at the beginning. I feel like there are a few more things to touch up on for the finals, but I\u2019m really glad I made it in there,\u201d Pickens said.<\/p>\n
Pickens and Freeman advanced to the semifinals after placing third and fourth in the morning preliminaries. The top 12 divers from the preliminaries advance to one of two semifinals. The top three from each semifinal qualify for the finals.<\/p>\n
The FINA Puerto Rico Grand Prix continues through Sunday. Friday\u2019s competition will feature Amy Cozad (Indianapolis, Ind.\/Bloomington, Ind.) and Jessica Parratto (Dover, N.H.\/Bloomington, Ind.) on women\u2019s 10-meter and Darian Schmidt (Bloomington, Ind.) on men\u2019s 3-meter.<\/p>\n
The above article is a press release submitted to Swimming World. To reach our audience, contact us at newsmaster@swimmingworl<\/a>d<\/a>.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" SAN JUAN – Deidre Freeman (Grinnell, Iowa\/Iowa City, Iowa) and Samantha Pickens (Murrysville, Pa.\/Tucson, Ariz.) have advanced to the women\u2019s 3-meter finals at the FINA Puerto Rico Grand Prix after<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[13],"tags":[39176,26116,27475,27484,27489],"class_list":["post-131295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-diving","tag-amy-cozad","tag-darian-schmidt","tag-deidre-freeman","tag-jessica-parratto","tag-samantha-pickens"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\r\n