Eva Reyes represented Mexico at last year’s FINA World Junior Diving Championships in the Ukraine, cutting short her first season of high school diving while competing for San Ysidro High School.
She returned to the diving board this season with the sole focus of competing for the Cougars.
Last weekend she completed a “very successful” season in the words of coach Dan Kovar after the SYHS sophomore placed seventh at the state championship meet.
The elite place-finish was not lost on either Reyes or Kovar.
“This is my second season and it was better than the last one,” Reyes said after returning from last weekend’s state finals in the Central Valley. “I had way much fun and this year I got the chance to go to CIF and state, which was a good experience.
Understandably, it took a lot of hard work to get there.
“At the beginning of the season, we discussed the goals she set out to achieve for what would be her first full year of high school diving,” Kovar recounted.
“Her goal was to win the San Diego Section dive finals and to accomplish that she would have to defeat last year’s defending champion and a whole slew of very competent young women.”
Kovar called it “a lofty goal for a high school sophomore.”
As it turned out, there were even more lofty goals to reach for.
Five years ago California added a state meet to the schedule with a chance to compete against the top 28 divers from all over the state.
Kovar told Reyes that to qualify for the elite event, she would have to finish among the top four divers at the section finals.
“I felt she had the talent and the work ethic to give the veterans a run for the title,” Kovar said. “We formed a plan to get her there.”
The coach and star pupil went to work. Reyes continued to progress throughout the season, winning her second consecutive South Bay League championship in competition April 24 at the Southwestern College pool.
She qualified to compete at the ensuing section finals May 3 at San Diego Mesa College, placing runner-up to defending Division I champion Jaye Patrick, a senior from Canyon Crest Academy.
Patrick finished with 318.55 points while Reyes finished a strong second with 297.40 points.
But the season was not over.
Reyes finished with the third most points at the CIF finals to qualify for the state meet, which took place last weekend at the Clovis Olympic Swim Complex at Clovis West High School in Clovis, located near Fresno.
“With a few tweaks to her list of dives during the season, she was able to come away with a hard fought second-place finish at the section finals and a coveted invite to the state meet,” Kovar said. “Our goal with regards to the state meet was to try and make the finals of top 16 divers in the state, which includes some of the top divers in the country.”
Reyes had one day of practice before the competition began last Friday.
“She had a good practice and seemed relaxed and poised in a field of very competent divers, something we struggled with in the bigger meets this year,” Kovar explained. “In a meet this big, the downfall of most divers is mistakes made during the competition. She stayed relaxed and steady through the first five dives and made it through the first cut of divers to the top 21 divers.
“Her next three dives included three of her best dives and one in particular — a reverse dive — garnered scores in the 9 and 9.5 range, an almost perfect score.
“She stayed steady and made it through the second cut into the finals. At the start of the finals she was sitting in fourth place after the strong part of her list. Her final three dives included some of her most difficult, but also somewhat inconsistent, dives in her repertoire. She performed to the best of her ability but in the end was out-gunned on the last round and finished in a very respectable seventh place, which was the highest placing of the local contingent.”
Reyes finished the state meet with 467.60 points for 11 dives. Patrick finished 10th in the field of 28 divers with 457.75 points. Westview’s Maegan Jensen, the third-place finisher at the Division I section meet, finished 16th with 393.80 points.
La Jolla sophomore Makenna Sammons, the Division II section champion, finished 18th in the state field with 278.40 points.
The top six finishers received state medals.
El Toro senior Savannah Stocker set a new state record with 538.75 points to capture her second consecutive girls title. Archbishop Mitty sophomore Remi Edvalson followed with 527.15 points in second place.
Other state medalists included Aliso Niguel sophomore Brooke Earley in third place with 526.00 points, Gunn freshman Nina Janmyr in fourth place with 496.35 points, Santa Clara sophomore Leila Busch in fifth place with 486.30 points and Crystal Springs senior Nike Agunbiade in sixth place with 281.65 points.
Reyes will have a target painted on her back next season as the section’s top returning performer at the state level.
“We left that meet with an insight to what we need to do to get in the medal round for next year, and with her drive and determination she’ll soon start working for next year,” Kovar said.
“At the start of the season my goal was just to win CIF because I didn’t know about state, so I worked super hard all season to get my place for state and it was worth it,” Reyes said. “I can’t wait to start the next one.”
State of mind
The girls competition took place last Friday followed by the boys competition on Saturday.
The San Diego Section’s four representatives in the boys field included Granite Hills junior Reece Robles (boys Division I champion), West Hills senior Devin Hunt (boys Division II champion), San Pasqual sophomore Jacob Rewa (second in Division I) and Del Norte senior Sam Schneider (third in Division I)
Though none of the divers came home with a gold medal, there were some respectable performances turned in by the group.
Robles finished 12th in the 28-deep field with 434.00 points. He was the only section male diver to score points in the meet (top 16 finishers).
Schneider finished 19th with 259.70 points while and Rewa placed 20th with 259.10 points. Both divers did not advance past the semifinals.
Hunt did not advance past the preliminary round after scoring 154.30 points.
Robles appears to have room to move up the state leaderboard in the future as his career best for 11 dives is 455.35 points.
Otherwise, it was a record-setting dive meet.
Besides Stocker’s state record performance, Villa Park’s Andrew Harness set a new state boys dive record with his winning score of 640.85 points.
