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128 ILLUSTRATED VOLUME 25, ISSUE 2 f Five-time All-American Casey Matthews and two-time All-Amer- ican Michelle Cabassol leave ma- jor shoes to fill in diving, but the Boilermakers have plenty of tal- ent to fill to begin to fill the void. MacKenzie Tweardy earned All-America honors last season when she finished eighth in the NCAA Championships in platform diving. Mary Beth Dunnichay sits fourth in program history in the 1-meter (333.10) and 10th from the 3-meter (345.75) and won all four diving events during the team's season-opening weekend. One of the most talented freshmen in the country joins the Boilermakers this year as well in Anna James, who finished second in the 10-meter platform at the 2013 USA Diving Winter Nationals. "(Diving coach Adam) Soldati is the best in the nation," Klinge said. "We'll be strong in diving once again." A top-three finish at the Big Ten, the most NCAA qualifiers in school history and the highest finish at the NCAA Champion- ships in school history, the senior class wants to take the program to new heights in their final sea- son and set the goals to do so. "Our senior class is all very close and on board with the goals," Sheets said. "We all want it really, really bad and when you have that coming from your seniors and leaders. … That is so key to being successful. Our whole senior year class is so ready to go." j BY KYLE CHARTERS KCharters@GoldandBlack.com L yam Dias left his sophomore season unhappy. The breaststroke special- ist wasn't seeing the results he wanted, despite being one of the Boilermakers' more talented swimmers. And he needed to figure it out, and soon, or that talent might soon go to waste. A new personal coach in the sum- mer of 2013 helped — Dias, a Cana- dian who lives in Montreal, is trained there by Martin Gingras — to give him a new focus for his final couple seasons at Purdue. And the results were seen quickly; last season, Dias set program records in the 100 and 200 breaststrokes at the Big Ten Champi- onships, where he placed fourth in the 100 (52.49) and second in the 200 (1:53.06). And he finished third in the consolation final of the 200 breast at the NCAA Championships to became the first Purdue swimmer to reach Honorable Mention All-America acclaim in an in- dividual event since 2010. "I've seen a lot of growth in Lyam, super talented, but what I see now most of all, in his senior year, is that he is taking ownership of his God-giv- en talent," Purdue men's swimming and diving coach Dan Ross said, "and I think early on he didn't have that 'I-have-to-work-harder-than- everyone' attitude, it was more 'I'm already better than everyone,' and I think this is a subconscious thought, because you can just beat people. "… (But now) I see a much more mature Lyam, much more balanced. Typically, he would take the easy road if you gave him the choices, now I see him doing what's a little more difficult S W I M M I N G F E A T U R E : L Y A M D I A S Refocused Senior swimmer excelling at perfect time Purdue Lyam Dias always has been talented, but since he's taken "ownership" of those abilities, Dias has made huge strides, Purdue swimming and diving coach Dan Ross said.