March 27, 2009
COLLEGE STATION, Texas - Purdue freshman David Boudia won the 3-meter springboard competition Friday inside Texas A&M's Student Recreation Center Natatorium in College Station, Texas, during day two of the NCAA Swimming & Diving Championships.
"When I came to Purdue in 1977, we hadn't had a Big Ten champion since 1969," head coach Dan Ross said. "We have established ourselves as a team that can compete at the top level of the Big Ten. With this win we now have proven we can compete at the top level of the NCAA. This just means so much to me personally. I'm happy for (head diving coach) Adam (Soldati) and David, but it's also a really cool thing for the Purdue family."
Boudia won his first national championship and broke two records in the process. The Beijing Olympian from Noblesville, Ind., put together a score of 493.10 points to break the meet record of 466.80 and the facility record of 462.25. Boudia set the tone early in the final by earning three 10s during his first two dives to build an ultimately insurmountable lead. Boudia scored 462.25 points, which bettered his previous facility record of 432.80 from the Art Adamson Invitational in November, to earn the highest score in the qualifying round.
"Winning my first national championship was definitely exciting," Boudia said. "I wanted to go in there and mimic my performance from the preliminaries, and I outdid that. I kept my composure, and it's just an exciting moment. It's exciting to do this not only for me, but for Purdue, for Adam, for Dan and everyone else."
Boudia's victory gave Purdue its second individual swimming and diving national champion and first since Keith Carter won the 200 breaststroke in 1949. The title also stands as the 20th individual NCAA championship earned by a Boilermaker in any sport.
"This is a team effort," head diving coach Adam Soldati said. "I am excited for David, our staff, the athletic department and Purdue University. We couldn't do it without all of their support. David is a class act and a hard worker. This championship is well deserved."
Sophomore David Colturi, who earned honorable mention All-America honors from the 1-meter Thursday, finished 18th off the 3-meter with his score of 350.20 in the afternoon session. Senior Andrew Langenfeld, Purdue's school-record holder in the 100-yard butterfly, finished 25th in the event after touching the wall in 46.99 seconds. Junior Kyle Mitrione scored 306.50 points to place 29th in the 3-meter competition.
Purdue has scored 44 points throughout the first two days of the national championship meet and are 13th heading into the final day of competition. The Boilermakers, who have never finished higher than 16th at the NCAA Championships, are seriously threatening to overtake the program-high point total at a national championship meet of 59 points.
The national championship meet concludes Saturday. Langenfeld returns to the pool to swim the 100 freestyle, which is the second event in the afternoon session that begins at 1 p.m. ET, and all three of the Boilermaker divers are entered in the platform. Diving preliminaries are tentatively scheduled to start at 3 p.m. The evening session begins at 8 p.m. Live results, as well as live video courtesy of Swimming World Magazine and ESPN360, can be found at purduesports.com.