Chelsea's Mitch Brown Wins D3 State Diving Title

Photos courtesy of Chelsea Swim and Dive Team

Chelsea diver Mitch Brown ran away with the D3 diving state title Saturday to cap off an impressive season for the Bulldog junior.

Brown’s state title was the first for a Chelsea diver since Joe Smith took the top spot in 2015.

It was a wire-to-wire win for Brown. He scored 41.65 on his opening dive in the preliminaries and would never give up the top spot in the 11-dive event.

Brown held a 19-point lead after the five preliminary dives and moved on to the semifinals where he extended his lead to 51 heading into Saturday’s three dive finals.

He would finish things off in his final three dives for a combined score of 152 points and giving him a final 11-dive score of 522.25.

The score of 522.25 is the second-highest diving score at the D3 state finals in history. The state finals record was set last season at 590.85.

Brown, who is coached by Chelsea diving coach Kristy Wing set the school record this season and will likely shatter many more pool records next season as a senior.

Five other Bulldogs competed in preliminaries but were unable to move on to Saturday’s finals.

The 200-medley team of Easton Hodel, Brown, Stephen Levine, and Bram Hartsuff just missed moving on to the finals with a 17th-place finish in the event where the top 16 move on to the finals.

Jack Leisnner was 30th in the 500 free for Chelsea, while the 200 free relay team of Owen Critchfield, Levine, Hartsuff, and Hodel was 20th.

Hodel finished 19th and Levine 33rd in the 100 back.