Diving: Section 1 divers finish top six at NYSPHSAA championships
Baseball players get asked if they know how the game will go in the bullpen and it's similar for divers.
Divers can know in warmup it will be a good competition especially with the diving boards. That happened for Suffern sophomore Luke Leale.
"The boards were really good (today)," Leale said. "They were spongy, giving yourself a chance to absorb as you finish (the dive). They had a good grip on them too and that's what you want."
The current Section 1 and Rockland County champion was the highest finishing diver finishing third at the NYSPHSAA championships scoring 504.40 points. He was fourth in the federation.
"I'm through the roof," Leale said. "My balance was definitely on point. The boards were great. My entries were awesome. Balance is the key to diving and I thought it was on point."
Jericho's Tristan Yang won the NYSPHSAA championship scoring 544.05 points. Tottenville's Nicholas Graham won the federation championship scoring 559.55 points.
Leale felt his final dive, his hardest dive, was the best dive. It was 105B a front two and a half somersault in the pike position.
"I always put my hardest dive as my last dive," Leale said. "The reason it went so right was the position I was in before I took off of the board. I had my arms already down before I extended my legs."
That dive helped catapult Leale up two spots.
Somers senior Jay Wilkinson fourth in the state (491.25 points) and Scarsdale senior Haochen Liu finished fifth in the state (473.40 points) concluding a strong day for Section 1 leading into Saturday's swimming finals.
Swimming preliminaries update
Friday morning, the Section 1 swimmers took center stage with the preliminary round of the NYSPHSAA and Federation championships.
Edgemont senior Christian Lee, Greeley juniors Conor McHugh and Erik Nadecki, Scarsdale senior Aidan Lee and Putnam Valley senior Gabriel Rzezwicki all finished in the top 10 of both of their individual events.
The Section 1 relays will make their presence known in the finals with Greeley making the championship finals in all three relay events. Clarkstown, Scarsdale, and the combine Ardsley/Hastings/Edgemont/Dobbs Ferry/Irvington will all have two relays competing in the championship finals.
The top 30 advance to Saturday's finals beginning at 10 a.m. at Ithaca College.
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Section 1 divers finish top six at New York state championships
