On Thursday, Feb. 6, the Southeast Knights swim and dive team faced the Lincoln Southwest Silver Hawks. Out of the nine divers, three Southeast athletes competed at the event, with Thea Gardner (9) ranking the highest of the three, getting second place overall. 

Poppy Morrow, a freshman diver, said that the diving team did well considering that, “Southwest is one [of] our bigger competitors.”

Grey Gergen (11), Gardner and Morrow did a great job representing the team while one of the leading divers, Sophomore Maggie Hayes, had to sit out due to an injury. 

“If [Hayes] had been diving, she would have probably gotten first [place],” Morrow said.

Even though Hayes wasn’t able to compete at the meet, it didn’t hold the team back. Morrow says that the team still did really well, with one member standing out from the rest.

“[Gergen] did an amazing job,” Morrow said. “It was one of his best meets.”

Southeast diving scores ranged from 3.5 to six, with the highest score of the night being a 6.5 from a diver on the Southwest team.

While these scores are good, divers are still working hard to perfect their dives, as conferences and State are rapidly approaching.

Conferences will be held at Southeast on Thursday, Feb. 13, for diving, and Friday, Feb. 14, for swimming. High school teams from the Lincoln and Omaha area will be in attendance. Morrow predicted that, “Our biggest competitors will be a couple of the Omaha schools.”

State Swimming and Diving will be held on Feb. 27, and will be the biggest event in the season for qualifying athletes.

Gardner, a first-time diver for Southeast, has already qualified for State, along with Hayes. 

“For now, practices are normal, but after conference [we] will have separate practices where we may work to get new dives and perfect the ones we have,” Gardner said.

Divers have been preparing for this time for a while, with many athletes having the goal to get a high enough score to qualify. Even though Hayes and Gardner are the only members on the team that are able to go to State, everyone else is still putting a lot of effort into meets and practices to continue to get better.

“We are all working on perfecting our dives, while learning a couple new ones,” Morrow said. “[Everyone on the team is focused on] just finishing the season strong.”