Dave Price
Appeal Sports Writer
MINDEN - A higher degree of difficulty paid golden dividends for Douglas High sophomore Steve Owens during the diving portion of the Northern 4A Swimming and Diving Regional Championships on Saturday.
Owens nailed his last two dives - a flying 1-1/2 and then a double front flip with a 2.2 degree-of-difficulty - to put the regional boys diving title on ice at the Carson Valley Swim Center.
Owens posted a score of 337.45 points to outdistance a pair of Reno freshmen, Alan Almada and Austin Iveson, to give Douglas its first Northern 4A boys diving champion. Almada finished second with 312.10 points and Iveson third with 305.20 points to join Owens as the North's three qualifiers for the NIAA 4A State Championships next Saturday in Las Vegas.
"I'm going to Vegas," Owens said, flashing a smile.
Interestingly enough, the three state qualifiers are all first-year divers. It was hard to tell because Owens put up a score that would have been good for either first or second in each of the last four years.
Owens put himself in position to win on his 10th dive - the flying 1-1/2 - which was greeted by a warm applause from the crowd and scores of 6.5, 6.5, 10, 6.5 and 6 from the judges (the high and low scores are discounted).
"I just learned that dive on Tuesday," Owens said. "I was looking on the score sheets and saw where I needed a dive under 1.8 or at 1.8. I looked and it was on there, so I just tried it, I had three practices to work on it and found I could do it easy, so I put it on my list. It's my favorite dive out of all al of them now."
Owens slammed the door with his double front flip in the final round, drawing a high score of 7 and a low of 5 from the judges.
Douglas nearly had a second state qualifier, as sophomore Holden Sapp placed fourth with 290.80 p;oints, just 15 points out of third. Senior Jeff Lujan also earned a medal with his fifth-place performance (256.30) and sophomore Kyle Kelly finished seventh (222.34).
McQueen senior Kate Oldham posted a 397.25 score to emerge as the regional girls champion ahead of Galena rival Trisha Wesner with a 385.40 score. Oldham took second and Wesner third at last year's regional meet.
McQueen's Kelsey Heggeness took third at 369.0 to earn a state qualifying berth. Reno's Patti Tartaglia was fourth (330.75) and Anji Ruppert of Galena fifth (324.95).
