CHEYENNE – After Tuesday’s diving competition against Laramie, Cheyenne South senior Amber Codr dried off, put on her warmup and lunged her way around the pool.
She smiled and joked with teammates as she strode with a deep knee bend on the pool deck, the result of aborting a dive during her approach – called a balk in diving.
“When I went up for the takeoff, my body position didn’t feel right,” Codr said. “So I stopped myself from going off the board and started over.
“When we balk a dive, we have to do a lap of lunges.”
Very little has gone wrong for Codr so far this year, and the balk meant a small wrinkle in Tuesday’s showing, a fourth-place finish in the dual meet with a total of 183.25 points. Judges will dock a diver’s score for a balk, yet Codr still put up her second-best six-dive total of the season.
“(Tuesday) I just came out with a smile on my face,” she said. “It was our first home meet of the season, and I gave coach this little smirk. I just went up there and had fun. It feels great to do the dives I’m doing.”
“She’s finally gotten comfortable with the sport of diving,” South diving coach Emily Sackett said. “She’s feeling confident with these new dives.
“You can’t pick up this sport over night, and she’s finally in a position to feel comfortable.”
Indeed, Codr has picked up the sport in three years, finally coming out for diving in 10th grade after resisting South swim coach Jason Garman’s sales pitch during her days at Johnson Junior High School, where Garman works as a counselor. Codr, a former gymnast, realized she could use some of the explosiveness and body awareness of gymnastics on the diving board.
Codr came to the pool and swore she’d only do one dive to see how she liked it.
“Her first day in here she had to lean a front dive off the side of the pool,” Sackett said. “I thought, ‘Oh boy.’
“Each year she’s gotten better from that front dive off the side to throwing two-and-a-halfs from the board.”
Codr was convinced she’d stick with cheerleading but discovered she could do both sports and she fell in love with diving.
On days like Tuesday, even while locked into the spirit of competition, she’ll think back to those days of a simple front dive from the pool’s deck and ponder the rapid journey to spinning and twisting off the diving board and slipping into the water like a knife.
“Some days I stand on the edge of the board and feel like I’m caught in a dream,” she said. “Then I dive and I’m back to reality.
“I just feel so blessed that I’ve had this opportunity to dive. I’ve reached potential that I didn’t even know was there.”
Should Codr place in the top six at October’s state meet, she’d earn her third all-state honor; she finished fourth in the triple jump at last spring’s state track and field meet and earned all-state and all-American honors in cheerleading last March. But that’s the ultimate goal for the season.
“My first two years I had the attitude that I was just going to do my best,” Codr said. “Now I have the attitude that I can get top-six if I work hard enough and want it badly enough.”
LARAMIE 123, CHEYENNE SOUTH 43
All distances in yards
200 medley relay: 1. Laramie, 2:04.59; 2. Laramie, 2:14.30; 3. Cheyenne South (Oliverius, Pickard, Santos, Ky.Marrill), 2:16.35.
200 freestyle: 1. Burchi, Laramie, 2:12.62; 2. Bleak, Laramie, 2:17.95; 3. Bolton, South, 2:26.07; 4. Kirkpatrick, Laramie, 2:29.59; 5. S.Aghbashian, 2:32.29.
200 individual medley: 1. Hamilton, Laramie, 2:32.20; 2. Snyder, Laramie, 2:37.36; 3. Anderson, Laramie, 2:53.40; 4. Santos, South, 2:57.01; 5. Pickard, South, 3:02.00.
50 freestyle: 1. Butcher, Laramie, 28.18; 2. Brown, Laramie; 28.39; 3. Johnson, Laramie, 28.43; 4. Spaulding, South, 29.14;5. Ky.Marrill, South, 29.65.
Diving: 1. Kobbe, Laramie, 262.75; 2. Giehm, Laramie, 203.05; 3. M.Pooler, Laramie, 191.00; 4. Codr, South, 183.25; 5. Nichols, South, 130.80.
100 butterfly: 1. Santos, South, 1:25.44; 2. Ka.Marrill, South, 1:27.80; 3. Bassett, South, 1:40.68.
100 freestyle: 1. Bienz, Laramie, 1:01.86; 2. B.Pooler, Laramie, 1:04.75; 3. Johnson, Laramie, 1:04.83; 4. Spaulding, South, 1:07.52; 5. Ky.Marrill, South, 1:08.60.
500 freestyle: 1. Snyder, Laramie, 6:06.35; 2. Clerkin, Laramie, 6:08.43; 3. Wilkinson, South, 8:29.37; 4. Schaeffer, South, 8:30.28.
200 freestyle relay: 1. Laramie, 1:55.74; 2. Laramie, 1:59.84; 3. South (Spaulding, Bassett, Pickard, Ky.Marrill), 2:10.02.
100 backstroke: 1. Burchi, Laramie, 1:13.76; 2. DeYoung, Laramie, 1:14.05; 3. Anderson, Laramie, 1:17.93; 4. Oliverius, South, 1:18.12; 5. Ka.Marrill, 1:21.51.
400 freestyle relay: 1. Laramie, 4:25.93; 2. Laramie, 4:36.74; 3. 3. South (Oliverius, Santos, Ka.Marrill, Aghbashian), 4:51.78.
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