Whitman Leading Metros Team Standings After Diving

By Reach for the Wall Staff; Photos by Marcus Chen

Boyds, MD February 8-9
The Washington Metropolitan Interscholastic Swimming & Diving Championships (METROS) kicked off Wednesday night with the boys diving competition where 47 divers, representing 24 different schools took to the boards for the 11-round competition. Before we get going on the details, if you are curious on how the scores are tallied…This competition had 7 judges and in a 7-judge event, when the scores are presented, the 2 highest and 2 lowest scores are eliminated. The remaining 3 scores are added up, then multiplied by the degree of difficulty. For example, for the first round of competition, Aiden Wang’s 5th dive was a Reverse 2 1/2 Somersault Tuck, with a degree of difficulty of 3.0, which earned him 63 points. He received the following scores: 7, 6.5, 7.5, 7, 7.5, 7, 6. Cancelling out the highs (2 * 7.5) and lows (6.5, 6) he got a sum of 21 (three 7’s). This was multiplied by the degree of difficulty 3.0 to get 63 total points.
Sticking with Wootton’s Aiden Wang, he led the preliminary round (first 5 dives) and ultimately took home the title, but was not without some fierce competition from the field. During the Semifinal round (3 dives) Finnian Gelbach from The Heights stormed back from 3rd position to take a 3 point lead over Aiden and a 15 point advantage over Whitman’s Tynan O’Donoghue. In the final round, Aiden’s 9th and 10th dive sealed the victory for him as he scored over 50 pts. for each dive, posting a total score of 502.40 to 491 (O’Donoghue) and 479.05 (Gelbach) after the 10th dive. Gelbach’s 11th dive earned a stellar 55.5 to a final total of 534.55, but was not enough to catch Aiden who’s 11th dive garnered 46.5 points, and a final score 548.90. O’Donoghue’s last dive scored 37.5 to finish 20 points shy of first and 6 points out of 2nd with a total 528.50.

Thursday night the girls took to the boards where 46 athletes from 23 different schools competed. Michelle Mazzara (Stone Ridge) and Lilia Atanda (Sherwood) were the clear favorites through the preliminary round and finished within 6pts of each other, Michelle scored 228.90 and Lilia in 2nd with 223.30.

In the semifinal round, Michayla Eisenberg (Flint Hill) posted solid scores to jump up the ranks from 5th to 3rd, leapfrogging Kaarina Williams (Whitman) and Ruby Borzekowski (Blair). The margin between Michelle and Lilia was tight throughout, with Lilia actually taking the lead after the 7th dive. Michelle came back on the 8th dive to retake the lead and went into the final 3 dives with a 5.7 point margin. In the final round, Lilia dove after Michelle, so could see what scores she had to post to take the lead. Michelle held strong and built up her lead through the first two dives to secure the victory. Both girls dove an outstanding meet, as Michelle’s final score of 506.85 was less than 6 points shy of the METRO record! Here’s how the last round scored for Michelle and Lilia:

As with past METRO meets, the swimming will be fierce and the team standings will fluctuate throughout the meet. Congratulations to the divers on a great competition & good luck swimmers!
Team Standings after diving:

Boys:

Whitman 65
Churchill 36
Wootton 24
BCC 24
The Heights 21
Clarksburg 15
Landon 13
Walter Johnson 10
St John’s 9
Gonzaga 8
Einstein 5
Sherwood 2
Northwood 1

Girls:

Whitman 57
Stone Ridge 34
Sherwood 21
Flint Hill 20
Blair 19
BCC 18
Walter Johnson 16
Good Counsel 14
Clarksburg 9
Holton-Arms 7
Richard Montgomery 6
St. Andrews Episcopal 5
Poolesville 4
Churchill 3