FEDERAL WAY — Adding her name to a long list of repeat champions was all Samantha Young had in mind.
That was the easy part.
Assured of a second straight diving title, the Shorecrest junior flipped and twisted her way into the record books at last week’s Class 3A/2A girls swimming and diving state championships.
Young capped a brilliant 11-dive display by surpassing the 30-year-old high school state record during the Nov. 13 finals at the King County Aquatic Center.
Ahead of the field by a comfortable margin through eight preliminary rounds, Young delivered three of her highest scores of the meet to boost her winning total to 453.90 points.
That mark narrowly topped the record of 453.30 set in 1974 by three-time state champion Teresa Hackett of Highline and shattered the 10-year-old meet record of 439.65.
“I’ve been working toward it so hard,” Young said. “It’s a great reward. I couldn’t ask for anything more.”
Young was unaware she was closing in on Hackett’s score and didn’t find out about her accomplishment until after her last dive.
“She and I have an agreement that I won’t talk numbers with her. It’s much easier to focus on your dives if you aren’t looking at the outcome,” Shoreline District dive coach Keela Carter said.
“I told her coming into (Saturday) the meet record was within reach. I didn’t even talk to her about the state record. I think that was more my goal.”
Facts and figures aren’t of concern to Young, who finished more than 30 points ahead of second-place Jessica Snowden of Issaquah.
“Personally, I don’t like to know all that,” Young said. “It makes me more nervous.”
Coming into the meet as the defending champion created a burden Young described as daunting.
“This meet was so much more stressful than any I’ve ever been in,” said Young, who regularly competes at the national level for her club team.
Despite the added pressure, Young acknowledged after the awards ceremony she had just completed one of her most consistent start-to-finish performances.
Young received just a handful of scores from the seven judges lower than a 6.5 and most of her marks in the finals were sevens or higher.
“I’ve done these dives in practice more than a thousand times, so I went up on the board with confidence and did it like practice,” Young said. “I just decided there’s no point in not being confident.”
With three dives remaining, Young trailed Hackett by 142 points. The gap shrunk when Young earned a meet-high 48.30 for her forward double somersault and a 48 for her inward one-and-a-half.
That left a forward one-and-a-half somersault with a full twist. The dive carries a 2.2 degree of difficulty, meaning that Young needed to average sevens to overtake Hackett.
It went according to plan:
Step, step, step.
Bounce, bounce, liftoff.
Flip, twist, entry.
History.
“She just focused on one dive at a time,” Carter said. “She was nervous but she didn’t over practice. She didn’t watch her competition. She just stayed focused on her own diving.”
It had been 10 years since anyone had approached Hackett’s mark, which was by far the longest standing girls swimming and diving state record.
The next oldest records were set by Megan Oesting of Mercer Island in the 200-yard freestyle and 200 individual medley in 1989. No other marks have survived more than 11 years.
“I was in first grade when that record was set,” Shorecrest coach Bill Murray said. “It stunned everybody when they started looking at that. It’s really something. It’s one of the few (records) that has withstood the test of time.”
Young placed third at state as a freshman and captured last year’s title with a total of 412.30 points that now ranks as the 11th highest 3A/2A mark in state meet history.
“It’s amazing how much she’s improved,” Murray said. “She won it last year, but this year she was a really solid, polished diver.”
With a mission.
“Last year she was just kind of here,” Carter said, “and this year she was here to win.”
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
