NAU senior swimmer Kristin Jones and senior diver Holly Frost will be chronicling their final conference meet from the WAC Swimming & Diving Championships from San Antonio. The second entry comes from Frost:
Palo Alto Natatorium is a very distinctive place where magical moments happen. Something about the water in that pool and the atmosphere, which surrounds all of us, that generates monumental racing and on point diving. Yesterday, February 23 was the second day of the WAC Championships and boy was there some stellar racing and beautiful diving. Beginning the day in our usual fashion we entered the pool for wake up swimming and a little diving to get our bodies moving and prepare for the day ahead. Boy, was it a day. Bang, NAU began prelims rest began to fall into place on the swimming and soon diving side.
Diving began with eight Lumberjacks ready to make a statement and let the rest of the building know we were here and ready to work. With two seniors, myself included, this was the beginning of a culminating experience that we have been preparing and battling for this past 4 years. Diving competitions are kind of like a mystery game, you watch people compete, hear scores and then try and guess where people will place and who will earn the coveted top 8 places. Sometimes it is a given who will be in the top but often it is a battle. No matter what happens you keep fighting for everything you can and earn every possible point with pretty toes and clean lines.
We were able to come together as a team and build one another up with positive energy, words, and constant dance party. We all compete differently and need different things to make competition easier and to be successful. Something that I have learned the past 4 years is having the ability to feed off teammates and learn from what they do makes you a better person and athlete. We have been successful individually and as a team and a lot of that is because we support one another and want each other to do well. Personally, it is more important for the team as a whole to do well than myself as an individual; we fight together and that is what makes us the team to beat and the team people want to be. I am proud to be a Lumberjack and I am proud to be a diver part of this program. So far, we have had multiple girls make both the consolations and finals on both 1M and 3M springboard. Tomorrow is platform and another opportunity to come together as a team and compete to the best of our abilities.
“I am a member of a team, and I rely on the team, I defer to it and sacrifice for it, because the team, not the individual is the ultimate champion.”
-Mia Hamm
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