Three Pirates also advance
By Bob Nuse, Sports Editor
Cathy Haines couldn’t be happier with the progress her Montgomery High divers have made this year.
And that progress has resulted in four Cougars qualifying for tonight’s state championship meet at The College of New Jersey.
Montgomery senior Luke Terragrosa qualified for the boys, but is injured and will not compete. On the girls side, juniors Emily Burke-Smith and Kimberly Lu will be joined by freshman Sabrina Schielein.
Also competing from West Windsor-Plainsboro High South will be Colin Hall for the boys, along with Alice Eltvedt and Laura Canandang for the girls.
”It is a good representation so we are happy,” Haines said of her Montgomery contingent. “They have done great. This is Kimberly’s second year and she has done really well. She has grown over the year and strengthened her list of dives. She has really come into her own as a diver.
”The same thing with Emily, She had such a strong year. Her degree of difficulty has increased and she has really been fantastic. For Sabrina, this is her first year diving. She came to us as a gymnast and took up diving and this is her first year. After fixing some habits and taking some of the gymnastics out she has come on strong and qualified in the last meet. She learned some new dives in order to have the required degree of difficulty and she has picked up the new dives quickly.”
While Schielein qualified in the Cougars’ final meet, Burke-Smith has known all season she would be in the state meet. She had qualified each of the last two years since moving to Montgomery from Hawaii, but this is the first year she will be able to attend the meet.
”I knew from Day One that I wanted to qualify for states,” said Burke-Smith, who qualified in the first meet of the season and has had a qualifying score in every meet. “I really pushed hard to get to the state meet. You have to have 12.3 degree of difficulty and Sabrina and I both got to 12.4 with our degree of difficulty.”
Having come to Montgomery from Hawaii, diving was not new to Burke-Smith when she arrived. In fact, by the time she started with the Cougars she was already a veteran in the sport.
”I started when was 9, so I have been doing it for a while,” she said. “I used to be on a swim team in Hawaii and I saw all the divers going off platform and doing dives and it really looked like a lot of fun. I was a on a team where we trained six days a week year round.
”I have been getting used to the high school program. When we moved here I didn’t know a lot about it. The last two years I couldn’t go, so this year it was my goal to make it and compete.”
The qualifying score for a six-day meet to reach states is 165, and the lowest score of the season for Burke-Smith has been a 178. She’s glad to not only be going to TCNJ herself, but with some of her teammates as well.
”It is nice that other team members are also going,” said Burke-Smith, who dives in the summer for Nassau Swim Club in the PASDA meets. “It is also nice to have people from this area and people you know that will be there.”
This season Burke-Smith broke her own school record for an 11-dive meet when she recorded a 323. Next year she’s hoping to break 400 with her score, but for now is concentrating on tonight’s meet.
”She has really had a very good season,” Haines said. “She has Lyme disease that we just found out about and even with that she has qualified in every single meet that she dives in. So she has had an amazing season. She shows her strength and talent every meet doing some new dives.”