On Friday, Oct. 7 in the Jones Natatorium at Eastern Michigan University, the stands sat quietly waiting for the 2016 Women’s Michigan Interscholastic Swim Coaches Association (MISCA) dive meet to begin. Divers from all over the state of Michigan were focused as they awaited their turn to show the judges their capabilities. A single diver was standing on the boards. She paused for the judges to signal her to start. She took one last deep breath and began her first dive, officially starting 2016 MISCA meet.

“Sometimes this meet can be full of bad diving,” said Brad Huttenga, the meet director and Huron High School diving coach. “We usually guess as coaches to how many divers will obtain and All American qualifying score. A lot of the guesses [for All American Qualifiers] where seven, eight, even ten. I said ten, but the total number was actually sixteen.”

The MISCA meet is one of the few meets where divers will compete their 11 dives. Most meets divers will only compete six dives. Here many competitors will attempt to get an All American qualifying score of 375. The top 16 divers qualified, which is much higher than average at this meet.

The Winner, Saline High School Cam McPherson, was one of these qualifier. “Whenever I do good in a meet, it makes me feels like all my hard work has paid off,” McPherson said.

During her high school season, McPherson finds herself practicing four hours a day, six days a week. She puts many hours of each day into diving and it’s an amazing feeling when you are recognized for this effort. In this meet her effort and determination is show.

McPherson is more than a high school diver, she competes year round with a club called Legacy Diving. A club where Mackenzie Crawford, a sophomore at Milan High School, also practices.

“[MISCA] gives me more experience doing an 11 dive meet,” Crawford said. “This will help me feel more comfortable doing 11 dives at bigger meets such as regionals or states.”

This is the first large scale meet that divers will compete in their season. It is a good meet to judge how the rest of the season may play out.

“[McPherson] is currently working on a few dives with more DD (Degree of Difficulty),” said Kara Smith, the diving coach at Saline High School. “She is working on her front two and a half pike as well as her reverse one and a half, one and a half. We are talking about replacing a few dives in her list.”

It’s good to celebrate victories, but they also are always looking ahead to the next meet.

“I think I could work on my form and my entries mostly,” McPherson said. “I could probably point my toes more and keep my form tight and get nice clean entries.”

McPherson has already analyzed what she could have done better in this meet, and will work hard to improve and prepare for the next meet. All the divers will look back on their past meets and prepare themselves for the their next big competition, this being Regionals.

The final results of the top eight are as followed: Cam McPherson in first with 490.30, Gracyn Seagard in second with 451.15, Mackenzie Crawford in third with 431.00, Emma VonHoltz in fourth with 429.00, Elise Turke in fifth with 417.40,  Bernadette Turchi in sixth with 415.10, Anna Hansen in seventh with 414.55, and Allyson Schafer in eighth with 412.75.