NEW HAVEN — This winter marks the first full season of collegiate diving for Wallingford native Andrew Buehler, and the Southern Connecticut State University junior is making the most of it.
The 21-year old is heading to the NCAA Division II championships next week after winning the Northeast-10 Conference 1-meter and 3-meter diving championships in late February off his home boards at SCSU’s Bruce Hutchinson Natatorium.
Buehler’s performance helped SCSU win the men’s team championship. The Owls dethroned two-time defending conference champ Bentley. The SCSU women also emerged as NE-10 champions.
Buehler won the 3-meter competition by a whopping 54 points with a score of 509.70. He captured the 1-meter title with a score of 502.45.
The two performances got Buehler named the Northeast-10’s Most Outstanding Diver, just as he was in 2020. He is just the third diver in NE-10 history to win the award in back-to-back seasons.
“NE-10’s was a wild weekend full of ups and downs,” Buehler said Wednesday. “We took home the trophy for both the men and the women. Everyone brought their ‘A’ game and everyone did what they had to do.”
Buehler was a four-time All-State diver at Sheehan. He won two Class S state championships and holds the school diving records.
Next week, he’ll be the the only Owl who will compete at the 2022 NCAA Division II National Championships at the Greensboro Aquatic Center in Greensboro, N.C.
An CSCAA All-American, Buehler also won the conference championships in 2020 as a freshman and was selected to compete in that year's NCAA Division II national meet. The pandemic, however, intervened. While the preliminaries were held and Buehler qualified for the finals, the remainder of the meet was shut down by COVID.
Last year, Buehler’s sophomore season was entirely wiped out by the pandemic.
Thus, well into his third year at SCSU, Buehler can now say, “I finally got to complete a season all the way through.
“This year, I would like to finish in the top six or even the top 10,” Buehler added “I’m just so excited to be going. If I get a higher placement, that will be a cherry on top. I just want to go out and represent Southern.”
Buehler is a Business Management major. He hopes to own his own business some day. For now, he just wants to take care of business on the diving board next week at NCAA’s.