Senior Jane Lehman has been diving all four years at Sion. She placed third in the state for the second year at the state championship despite having a nagging knee injury.
“Diving at state never gets easier it will always be stressful but if you can use this stress and turn it into motivation to do better it will make you perform your dives better,” Lehman said. “That helped me get through my dives the past four years.”
Three out of the four divers are part of the senior class. The outlier sophomore Naya Narciso has been one of the storm’s consistently strong divers throughout the season placing second in the state.
“Even though it’s only my second year diving in state it’s one of my favorite parts of the season,” Narciso said. “It’s nerve-racking diving on such a big stage but the dive community is so great.”
As divers line the pool to wait on flipping and twisting across a big crowd, they calm their nerves by actually talking to their opponents.
“My favorite thing about diving at state is the community when waiting in line to dive, Lehman said. “We all are nervous and we know that so we all just try to make each other comfortable by joking and laughing to calm our nerves.”
The storm was already put at a disadvantage swimming at a St Louis pool, while most of their opponents weren’t performing at their home pool.
“The team comradely that we have created will be greatly missed,” Senior Cat Knopke said. “State always creates the best memories because we get to travel together as a team even though we aren’t at a home advantage.”
Hours of grinding in the early mornings and long practices were all made worth it with the divers results. Being able to achieve something as a team all made it worth while as the divers posed in front of the podium.
“Its a pretty cool thing that we all ended up placing,” Knopke said. “Its a achievement we are so proud of.”
Losing three seniors next year, the team cherishes every last minute together as a team.
“I love my senior class and I will miss them greatly because the connection we have made over the past 4 years is amazing,” Lehman said. “It is so crazy and cool that all of us made it on the podium this year at state! It made all the hard work worth it.
