The Illinois swimmers and divers are usually considered as one unified group. They share the same practice pool, go to the same meets, and compete against the same teams.

However, in order to prepare for their biggest meets of the season — the swimmers being at the Big Ten Championships last month and the divers having the Big Tens and this weekend’s Zone Diving Championship — they took two entirely different approaches.

The swimming team decided to decrease the number of practices it had and its workload in practice before the Big Ten Championships; however, to prepare for the Big Tens and Zones, the diving team did the complete opposite.

“We picked up the intensity in the quality,” head diving coach Chris Waters said. “As we get closer (to Zones) we’re focusing a lot more on concentration and throwing and executing the actual dive, and we’ve more of that since the Big Tens.”

This weekend two members of the Illinois diving team will be competing in West Lafayette, Ind., in the Zone Diving Championships. Freshman Tessa Adams and sophomore Britni Fisher both qualified for the meet, Adams in the one meter and Fisher in both the one and three meter.

A third diver, freshman Lauren Wismer, qualified for the meet but will not compete due to injury.

The increase in practice didn’t go unnoticed by Adams and Fisher.

“We’ve been training a lot harder, more practices and more reps in practices,” Adams said.

Because only two divers have to train for this meet, Waters feels it is much easier to train with them.

“It’s definitely a plus, 90 percent of the time it is much easier,” Waters said. “I can pay a lot more attention, but sometimes they may feel like they’re being picked on.”

The format of this meet is essentially designed to be like a regional, and qualification for the meet is entirely score based.

“There are five regions or zones,” Waters said. “We are in the Midwest zone, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio and Kentucky. You only have to hit a certain score one time (to qualify) in dual meets. Then once you qualify you can compete in all three events: one meter, three meter and platform.”

Advancing past Zones to the actual NCAA Championships requires that you either be in the top three in the one meter, top four in the three meter or the top two in platform.

However, if a diver places in two or more events, she moves on using only one of those scores and the girl with the next highest score of three events also advances.

Fisher is the only member of the team that has been to the Zone Championships before, and she described the atmosphere as more relaxed and calm.

“It’s a blast, it’s the only all-diving meet we go to all year,” Fisher said. “It’s more friendly than swimming, it’s a lot of fun.”

Waters also believes the meet is more fun than most of the team’s meets, but he feels the atmosphere can be a little more aggressive than what Fisher described.

“It is as intense as the Big Tens, the quality of the competition may even be better,” Waters said. “It’s always fun though, since it is a diving only meet.”