Divers from Hart, Saugus and Valencia High Schools took to the air to showcase their diving abilities at the Santa Clarita Aquatics Center on Monday.
Trying to beat previous meet records, several of the divers stepped outside of their comfort zones and tried to perform new dives that they learned last week.
“Each week the divers have been breaking their previous meet’s records,” said district coach Mike Dreyfus. “We have some new divers pushing themselves and learning some new dives.”
Caden Baird from Hart performed a backward 1 1/2 somersault for the first time resulting in scores of 5 1/2 and 6.
“He just learned it last week and actually did pretty good for his first time,” Dreyfus said.
Nicole Lerma from Saugus performed a forward 1 1/2 somersault and she received a 5 and 6 for the dive.
“She learned a new dive and performed it for the first time today,” Dreyfus said.
Emma Williams of Hart also turned some heads with her performance on the day.
Williams, along with Caden Moore of Saugus, who did not participate in today’s meet, recently qualified for the CIF-Southern Section Qualification meet after executing some of their best dives of the season in last week’s meet.
“It’s kind of weird, you have to qualify for the qualifier. That was a big feat to qualify for,” Dreyfus said. “You have to meet a certain degree of difficulty which qualifies them for the meet.”
Competing within themselves, divers try to pull out their best twists and flips in order to place within the top 12 at the qualification meet to qualify for state finals.
The next league meet will be on Monday, April 8 at the Santa Clarita Aquatics Center.
“It comes down to commitment,” Dreyfus said. “It comes down to desire to move forward, so it’s about how much dedication and commitment they put forward. It’s kind of inherent in all of us that if we don’t drive ourselves we don’t have that commitment and dedication, it’s difficult to move ahead. That’s what I strive and tell them to have within.
“Focusing at practice is important.”