NOTEBOOK : U.S. OLYMPIC FESTIVAL: ORANGE COUNTY’S DAY : LOS ANGELES 1991

Eric Lesser, a 20-year-old from Mission Viejo, finished 13th in the three-meter springboard diving preliminaries Thursday at the USC McDonald’s Olympic Swim Stadium, less than 5 1/2 points shy of making Saturday’s finals. Chris Dudka, a senior at UCLA, was 12th with 490.86 points. Lesser had 485.43.

Lesser, a sophomore at Michigan who graduated from Capistrano Valley High School, was disappointed he came so close without taking one of the top 12 spots that advance to the finals, but he was generally pleased with his performance and obviously happy to be competing in the Festival.

“I redshirted as a freshman and that was sort of a lost year,” he said. “Then we did a lot of dual meets, the NCAAs and the (indoor) nationals were in April. So this is my first big meet in a long time.”

Lesser, who trains full-time in Ann Arbor, Mich., with the Kimball Divers, said he hopes to fare better during today’s platform preliminaries. He finished 18th on the platform and 24th on the three-meter springboard in the 1991 Indoor Nationals.

“(Coach Dick) Kimball has us do a lot of training off the tower and there’s only 14 guys entered in the platform here, so maybe it’ll be a different story,” he said.

One thing won’t change, however. Lesser will still get homesick when winter hits the Midwest. Does he miss Mission Viejo in December?

“December? “ he repeated, laughing. “Mission Viejo starts looking real good about October.”