Winhawk Big 9 Diving Summary

The first event in the 2012 Big 9 Girls' Swimming & Diving Championships this year was not the 200 Medley Relay.

This year 37 divers from the 10 high schools in the Big 9 met at Mankato East High School to score the first points of the meet.

The Big 9 Championship is an eleven dive event, consisting of 5 initial dives that pare the field down to 20 Semi-finalists.

From there an additional 3 dives are performed where the field is again reduced, this tie to the top 16.

These divers then do their final 3 dives to determine the overall finish and who contributes the first points to their individual teams.

The eleven dives consist of the five required dives of Front, Back, Inward, Reverse and Twisting, and six additional optional dives made up from the five groups.

No more than one optional dive from each group is permitted and all groups must be represented through semi-finals.

That being said, the divers must determine what dives they want to place where. Get the tough/less favorites out of the way early.

Put you best dives early to make sure you get to semis or finals, spread them around, it all depends on the psycy of the diver and their coach.

The variability of dive placement also means that results at semis and finals don't mean much, as the dive lists are not necessarily apples and apples comparisons.

The diving order is determined by lot, drawing names for diving order.

With 37 divers competing in the preliminaries, after having warmed up, you can go 20 minutes or more between diver. The challenge is to

Winhawk Sr.Megan Seeley was the first up in the order, 13th overall, Megan started out well, scoring low 20's on her Inward dive pike and back 1 somersault.

Her front 1 1/2 ss, front 2 ss and Inward 1 1/2 did not score well and Megan finished in 25th missing the cut into semi-finals.

Next in the order came Winhawk Jr. Janelle Mueller. Janelle started strong scoring 5's on her Inward 1 1/2.

Her second dive was a Forward 2 ss in the tuck position, but it was incorrectly listed on the dive sheet as pike.

Janelle did not realize the announced dive was different than what she was prepared to perform, and did the dive.

An Unsatisfactory dive was declared by the Diving Referee, and the judges could award no more than 2 points. It was a major set back both points wise AND psychologically.

Janelle did not seem to get back on track for one more dive, finally scoring mid twenties on her back 1 1/2 ss tuck and Reverse 1 1/2 ss Tuck, dives 4 & 5.

Janelle finished the preliminaries in 20th place, managing the final spot advancing to the Semi-finals. Having to fight her way up to 16th got to her mentally and her next two dives were not up to her usual standards.

Janelle finished her night in 20th place not advancing on to the finals.

Sarah Scherbring, the youngest of the bunch being a Sophomore, didn't act that way, she started out consistent and maintained it through the semi-finals.

Her first and seconds dives, a Front 1 1/2 SS Tuck and Back dive Straight both scored identical 23.80 points. Her 5th dive, a Reverse 1 1/2 SS Tuck was awarded 4 1/2 - 6's for a 35.20 total.

Come the end of Preliminaries, Sara finished in 10th place overall. She started out well in the semi-finals scoring 4 1/2 - 5 1/2's on her Back 1 SS with 1/2 Twist followed by the same on her Inward 1 SS Tuck.

Then possible disaster struck and Sarah came up short on height performing her Front 2 ss Tuck. She only score 6.60 points from it and advancing looked unlikely.

When they announced the finalists, Sarah had fallen to 16th but still qualified for the Finals. Her Inward dive pike scored 4 - 5 1/2's but the remainder were not enough to move her up, Sarah finished a respectable 16th place.

The last in the Winhawk in rotation was Winhawk Sr. Co-Captain Crystal Franzwa. She scored consistently through the prelims, finishing 10 pts out of first.

In the semi-finals, Crystal's Back Dive Straight scored for 6 1/2's and her Inward dive Pike went for 5's to 7's. She stayed in 2nd but was now only 6 points out of 1st.

In the Finals Crystal gained some ground, getting as close as 2 points out of 1st on the strength of her Inward 1 1/2 ss pike. In the end she stayed in 2nd place.