Sophomore Sam Lavrich became MHS’s all-time best diver this winter when she set a new school recordwith a score of 266.80.

Sam began diving two years ago and brought a positive attitude to the girls swim team. Her coach, Lin Kostelny, said she is one of the best female divers she has ever coached.

“She is a natural leader, who has a positive attitude and is willing to help her teammates. She is committed to our team and to the sport of diving. As her coach it is rewarding to see her pursuit of the perfect dive.”

When in season, Sam practices every day after school for more than two hours to learn new dives and to continue to progress with her strongest dive,twisting.

To be prepared to compete in bigger meets, such asDistricts, where she placed 17th overall, Sam said she must be in the proper mental state because it is a scary sport.

“It can be really painful if you smack [your head], and it’s hard to get back up on the board after that.”

She gets ‘in the zone’ by doing warm-ups and listening to music on her iPod before it is time to dive.

Although she is a “very natural diver” as Kostelny stated, Sam said she still has room for improvement.

Because she did gymnastics for a number of years, she sometimes unknowingly incorporates
that discipline into her diving, a habit she is constantly trying to end.

Sam will continue diving next year when she will attempt to once again break MHS’s diving record.

Fellow sophomore diver Daniel Roy will be able to attempt to break his school record next year as well.

Daniel shattered the previous school record of 285 with a new score of 325.95 at this year’s nationals.

Despite making states last year, Roy finished 10th at districts this year, just missing the cut off for states. At districts a diver must be in the top seven to go to states.

Roy broke the boys record this year with a score of 325.00 with 6 dives. He said his performances this year were much better.

“Last year I made it to states, but I didn’t do as well as this year, so I always remembered that and tried to push myself harder,” he said.

Similar to Lavrich, Roy prepared for districts by practicing every day for two hours and taking a lot of constructive criticism from Coach Kostelny.

“The person who helped me the most was my coach. She helped me a lot in practice and made sure I was always on task,” said Daniel who hopes to go further in the future.

To better Roy’s diving this year, Kostelny increased his workload and pushed him to challenge himself.

“This year we changed his D.D. and added new dives to his list. Now he’s more stronger and aggressive on the board,” said Kostelny.
“I’m very happy with what I accomplished. Hopefully, next year and the years to come, I’ll make it to states.”

Scoring for diving is arranged in a point system from 1-10 in half-point increments. The score of each dive is determined by the total points awarded by each
judge. These points are known as the raw score. The raw score is multiplied by the degree of difficulty of the dive. At a competition there must be a minimum of three judges but up to nine are allowed.