SD Prep Sports

SD Prep Sports: Swimming

Metro divers reload for conference finals

By Phillip Brents

Posted May 15, 2003

The Metro Conference’s diving corps has performed admirably this season in countywide competition. The first step in postseason competition starts with Friday’s conference finals at the Loma Verde pool in Chula Vista, beginning at 3 p.m.

There could be as many as 25 divers entered in this year’s program.

Pictured at right: Eastlake's Samantha Womer

Eastlake’s Samantha Womer returns to defend the girls title. She topped the field last year with 282.80 points. Bonita Vista’s Brittney Aland finished runner-up for the second consecutive year with 275.40 points.

Like her counterpart on the boys side of the board, defending San Diego Section Division II champion Kyle Kovar from Hilltop, Womer has begun to attract a crowd around her as well.
The Titans feature four front-line divers this season in Womer, Sarah and Ashley Perez, and Maura Dumas. Sarah Perez competed last year for Bonita Vista.

Aland, who finished 10th at last year’s Division I championship meet, has not given up hope of catching Womer at Friday’s league finals. The Baron diver finished as the highest non-North County diver with a score of 285.50 points at last year’s division finals, besting Womer, who failed to advance past eight dives with 202.40 points.

Mar Vista junior Kim Forrest is another solid championship contender after finishing ahead of Womer in second place at the Santana Invitational earlier this season. Womer finished third in that meet, followed by teammates Sarah and Ashley Perez.

Mar Vista dive coach Dan Kovar called the Metro’s performance “phenomenal” at the meet, particularly its corps of female divers.

BV’s Aland, who is finishing her fourth year on the dive team, has the added benefit of drawing from an extensive gymnastics background. In fact, she competed concurrently on the school’s gymnastics and dive teams last year.

“My schedule was really tight. I had to go from practice to practice,” she said.

BV boys teammate Doug Schulz is looking to compile enough points to advance to next week's Division I finals the following week. He totaled 164 points to finish second behind Grossmont’s Randin Lambrecht — ranked second in Division II behind Hilltop’s Kovar — during the teams’ high profile dual meet in late March.

Schulz finished sixth at last year’s Metro finals. “The better the competition, the better it makes me want to perform,” he said.
Aland concurred. “Since starting the season, we’ve started to work toward harder dives,” she said.

Chula Vista’s boys trio of Bryan Flitcraft (pictured at left), Alex Martinez and Ian Tisdale also looks up to the challenge after steadily progressing throughout the season. Flitcraft, who is looking to better last year’s seventh-place showing in the 50 freestyle, scored a career-best 182 points in taking second place behind Kovar in the teams’ recent dual meet, while Martinez finished fourth by a narrow five-point margin behind Hilltop’s other CIF qualifier, Joe Olivarria. Tisdale, who has a gymnastics background as a performer with the Fern Street Circus, finished sixth behind Hilltop’s Alan Flores, who is also pushing the envelope to join teammates Kovar and Olivarria in next week’s CIF dive meet.

Kovar broke a 27-year-old school record for six dives this season and is now working on his father’s school record for 11 dives.

Tisdale’s circus duties include juggling and trampoline work. The latter has been very useful in the crossover to diving. “The mini-tramp and trampoline have helped a lot. I trained a lot on the trampoline for diving. Adjusting to the board and the spring have been the biggest thing. On the trampoline all you have to do is jump up and down,” he said.

Mar Vista's Sean Crampton finished third behind Kovar at last year’s finals by 35 points and finished runner-up to the Hilltop diver by 30 points in the teams’ dual meet encounter last month. The MV diver finished fifth at last year’s Division II CIF meet.