Never mind the fact that senior Hayley Fry took third place at Monday’s season-opening Emporia Diving Invitational.
She was just happy to be done with it.
“The first one’s always the hardest to finish,” Fry said. “Doing it once is kind of like, ‘Yes. That’s over.’”
Fry led three Emporia High divers who officially opened their season Monday, scoring a 135.90 for six dives to place third behind the winner, Lawrence’s Mallory West (198.05), and the runner-up, Lawrence’s Alex Hyler (138.10).
Fry said simply finishing out the competition was an achievement in itself when considering the team had only been practicing for two weeks. For Fry and the rest of the EHS divers, that meant Monday’s competition came as they were still adjusting to being back in the pool.
“I’m just proud of myself for just doing all of the dives,” she said, “because some of them were really new and I haven’t had a lot of time to work on any of them. It gives me an idea of what I need to work on now.”
Placing behind Fry in fourth was sophomore Aubrey Armitage, who scored a 135.45. The other official diver for EHS was junior newcomer Carissa Schmitz, who finished ninth with a 119.90.
“I saw good dives and bad dives,” EHS diving coach Barbara Clark said. “There’s so much improvement to be made, but you’ve got to see what your weaknesses are at meets, and then you can pull from that and go to practice with that. The good part is we taped it, so they can see what they did.”
Also competing but not officially scoring were freshman Chelsey Kessler and sophomore Jennika Wheeler, both of whom are also new to the team this season. Kessler finished with a 109.40, while Wheeler had an 82.15.
“I had three new divers, so just to get them in a meet before (spring) break was what we really wanted to do,” Clark said. “We just need more practice.”
The swimming portion of the EHS Invite will take place at 4 p.m. today at the EHS pool.