Cathedral’s Dive team “competing well” despite small size

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Orry Marciano, Staff Writer

At the edge of the pool, Brianna Rotherham, a senior and a veteran Dive team member, stood waiting to be called up to dive. To the left are the bleachers where parents from Cathedral, Canyon Crest Academy, Saints, and Our Lady of Peace sit anticipating the next dive at the Swim and Dive meet.

Over the loud speakers her name is called and she walks up the cold, metal stairs to the diving board. She rubs her hands together and prepares herself for the plunge. After walking to the end of the board, the crowd is dead silent. She bends her knees, jumps, and dives pointedly into the water. The judges call her score: 6, 5.5, 7, and she climbs back to the side where the rest of the Cathedral Dive team, only three others, cheer her on.

Cathedral’s very own Dive team, led by Coach Casey, is just as valuable as any other sports team despite their size. Each and every member increases their presence on the team by believing in each other. “Our team is so loud and supportive to each other every time one of us goes up on the board,” said Brianna.

Watching the other schools dive, one could not help but notice how pumped up the CCHS Dive team was on the sideline. At one point the team was making several different dancing moves, imitating motions from songs such as “Can’t Touch This.” When that became boring they just started doing handstands, and the way it looked, they never ran out of ways to have fun during the meet.

Spectators, including the swimmers who would compete after the divers, watched every move the team made. The divers began by warming up, and diving off the board freely. Sometimes they would jump off the board after they messed up their preparing motions. All schools had a chance to practice their dives before the competition which allowed for a chance to see how well prepared the other teams were.

After practicing, each school would have their competing divers perform their six dives scored on a scale of 1-10. When the diver receives his or her three scores they would all be added up and multiplied by the difficulty of the dive. At the end of the meet, their scores would be combined with the swim team’s and whichever team scored the most points would take first place.

The event can be very intense because at the end of a dive there really only are two results: the diver lands the dive or everyone hears a loud smack. A good dive could spark ‘Ahs’ and in the event of a smack, one could expect several ‘Ohs’ from the bystanders.

Brianna, in her last year at Cathedral, has taken the initiative to challenging herself with more difficult dives and perfecting them for meets. The rest of the team, too, has challenged themselves with harder dives, and according to Brianna, “the team looks really good this year. We have a lot of guys and girls stepping up to the plate, constantly learning new dives, and competing well,” she said.

She hopes to help the swim team get more points at the meet and also help get as many divers as possible to CIF. Her success in her four years on the team has been assisted by her earlier athletic career. Brianna said, “When I quit gymnastics, I got into diving because it seemed like a natural thing to do. I could already do some of the skills like the flips and twists. I do cheer now along with dive and the tumbling aspect of both really go hand in hand.”

She continues to mention how the sport as a whole is really fun. Though the sport may not be as recognized as others, with only four competing members, Brianna mentions to anyone interested in diving that, “[As a team] you work together and support each other and individually you get to try new things and challenge yourself… I think people join Dive to get the thrill of hitting a perfect dive and trying something new,” she said.