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Kent Roosevelt junior Gwen Baker won the 1-meter diving competition Thursday at the Rough Riders' home pool. Baker gave up gymnastics to focus on diving.
KENT, Ohio – Like many high school divers, Kent Roosevelt junior Gwen Baker has a foundation in gymnastics.
As a sophomore, she tried to continue club gymnastics, while beginning to dive for the Rough Riders.
This season, she gave up gymnastics to focus on diving.
“I just thought it would be cool to do a school sport because gymnastics isn’t a school sport,” said Baker, moments after winning the 1-meter diving competition during Thursday’s Northeast Aquatic Conference tri-meet against Massillon Perry and Boardman.
Having her feet above her head is nothing new for Baker. She began her gymnastics training before she was in first grade.
“(Diving) kind of intrigued me because it was like gymnastics,” she said. “One of my friends who did gymnastics with me did diving here. It’s kind of how I started.”
Although her 6-dive score of 192.85 on Thursday was short of her personal-best score of 213.00, Baker continues to add higher degree of difficulty dives to her program.
“I’ve been working on those over the summer and they are coming into play now,” she said. “That’s when you do your hardcore training.”
Baker trains with YADA (Youngstown Area Diving Academy) and receives instruction from Youngstown State University coaches.
Baker believes the state meet is an achievable goal for next season. The Kent Roosevelt 6-dive record of 262.34 has been on the books since 1992.
The Roosevelt girls swim team graduated two seniors now swimming collegiately. Taylor Wise, school record holder in the 50 and 100 freestyle events, is competing for Lehigh University. Dana Steinert is a distance freestyler for Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP).
Rider senior captain Monica Sincel took second in both the 100 butterfly (1:04.01) and 100 backstroke (1:09.70) and the Riders placed third in the tri-meet.
On the boys side, Roosevelt defeated Perry, but lost to Boardman. Senior Rider captain John Sopko won the 50 free (23.80) and the 100 free (54.20).
Also scoring well for Kent were: 1-meter diving winner Matt Mitchell, Grant Wang with second-place in the 200 and 500 freestyle events and senior captain Joe Gray with a second in the 100 backstroke.
In NOC swimming:
LYNDHURST, Ohio -- Cuyahoga Falls won 21 of 24 events in sweeping dual meets from host Brush on Thursday.
The Black Tigers won the boys meet 123-47 and the girls meet 122-61.
Gregory Rechner was a 4-event winner for Falls (200-yard medley relay, 200 freestyle, 500 free, 200 free relay) and junior Andrew Appleby posted a time of 48.46 in winning the 100 freestyle.
Morgan Lydic (200 med relay, 500 free, 200 free relay, 100 breaststroke) and Natalie Hillyer (200 med relay, 200 IM, 100 freestyle, 400 free relay) were 4-event winners for the Black Tigers.
Alexa Hoynacke (50 free), Drew Dockery (boys 1-meter diving), and Emily Krosin (100 backstroke) won events for the Brush Arcs.