Most students in their first semester of college just try to keep their heads above the water. Freshman diver Emily Allen has been doing just the opposite in a big way. Allen, who began her diving career at the age of 11, kicked off her first collegiate season strong at the swimming and diving team’s first home meet last Saturday. Allen won both of her events—women’s one meter and three meter diving—defeating the visiting Wooster Scots by large margins. Those impressive wins were put to shame by the news that Allen received at the end of the one meter competition.
Not only did Allen win the meet, but she shattered both the pool and school records for women’s one meter diving with a score of 248 points. The previous school record was a good five points behind that at 243 and the pool record even further behind at 235. For those of us out there who have no idea what those numbers mean, a diving score is calculated by adding the three scores given by the judges and then multiplying that number by the DD, or degree of difficulty. That score is calculated for all six dives, and, as expected, the highest score wins. Going into a meet, a diver knows where they stand with degree of difficulties, but it’s all about hitting the dives, something that Allen knows all about.
“I was pretty darn excited, I knew that I dived a good meet. I was just hoping that I would be somewhere near the record,” said Allen about hearing the good news. “I’m just so excited that all the work and effort is yielding success.”
Yielding success is quite a bit of an understatement for the feats that Allen accomplished at that meet, because her record breaking scores also set her on a course for another milestone. The score of 248 is only seven points off of the Division three National diving cut.
“That’s very exciting for me,” said Allen. “It was just really cool to see that it’s so close within reach. It’s really encouraging.” Being so close so early in the season certainly lends itself to positive hopes for the rest of Allen’s season.
“The the national cut is absolutely attainable for her. She has had good training, and has great form and great physical strength,” said head men’s and women’s diving coach Jim Smith. Coach Smith obviously believes that Allen has what it takes to dive at the National level, and she knows exactly what she has to do to get there.
“My reverse one and a half, I left a couple points off of that. I will probably change a couple things to pike, which is the same dive just changing the position, increase the DD a little bit. Hopefully that will be enough to secure the spot.” She makes it sound so easy, although for anyone who has ever watched a diving meet, just finding the courage to get off the board looks difficult enough.
Allen has already left her mark on the Wittenberg record books, and hopefully she will make more history in late March at the NCAA Diving National Championships. But if one thing is for sure, Allen has found a home here at Wittenberg, and the community wishes her the best of luck.
