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Thursday, January 20, 2005

Diving Rookie Learning Fast

By Harold Smith
Mountain View Telegraph
    Manzano High School's Lauren Jaramillo is having a grand old time as she competes in her rookie year off the 1-meter diving board.
    "She's always smiling," said Albuquerque Public Schools East diving coach Nicole Smith. "Everybody on the team loves her. She's even happy when she slaps the water."
    Jaramillo, a 5-foot 5-inch sophomore, lives with her parents, Gene and Maria, in the Tijeras area. She is one of two divers who will compete for the Lady Monarchs at the girls city championships at the Sandia Pool on Friday. Jaramillo already qualified for the state championships, to be held Feb. 18-19 at Albuquerque Academy's natatorium.
    "Our diving coach (Smith, a former city prep champion) was my gymnastics coach," said Jaramillo, who's as effervescent as the bubbly aftermath of a cannonball. "She talked me into it."
    Jaramillo is making rapid progress in her new sport. She scored 118.56 points to place sixth at the Academy Quadrangular on Jan. 12.
    Her teammate, sophomore Natasha Wright, was eighth with 110.92. In the boys' competition, Manzano senior Adrian Carver was second. His total was 167.09.
    "Lauren is doing very well," Smith said. "She's learning new dives. She's got about the same list (of dives with similar difficulty) as the top three or four in the state. She just doesn't have the experience yet."
    Jaramillo said she competed until a couple of years ago for Duke City Gymnastics, now Sandia Acrobatic Gymnastics Academy. She continues to practice twice a week at SAGA.
    She also played on the Monarchs' junior-varsity volleyball squad, and she pole vaults for Manzano's track and field team.
    "When I first started diving, it was a little difficult, but she (Smith) had me do difficult dives right away," Jaramillo said. "That was good, but it was hard. My coach said I have a lot of potential."
    Jaramillo quit the grind of gymnastics competition because of an injury.
    "I think I was sixth at state in my age group at level 4 before I stopped," she said. "I had the injury, and it was hard to keep up with school sports, school and gymnastics. I'd go to volleyball practice and then go to gymnastics practice."
    Jaramillo said the biggest difference between gymnastics and diving is getting used to the change from feet-first landings to diving's head-first entries. But she said divers can get hurt, too, even in ways beyond the possibility of bopping one's head on the board.
    "I've got so many bruises," Jaramillo said as she rolled up her sleeves to display a purple swath on her forearms. "You get them if you slap the water. When I first started, I was black and blue all over on my legs."
    Jaramillo wants to stick with diving through her senior year.
    "I think one of my qualities is I'll keep doing it," she said. "I get back up and do it again."
    That's good for Manzano as a team. The Monarchs swimmers, coached by Tammy Clarke, lost city and state top-three trophies last year due to a lack of diving points. They placed fourth at both meets.
    "I definitely want to place at state by the time I'm a senior," Jaramillo said. "That would be wonderful."
    ACADEMY QUAD
    The Manzano boys placed third with 68 points, and the Lady Monarchs took fourth with 32. Both scores included the diving results as well as the 11 swimming events.
    Academy's boys (152) and girls (181) won the meet.
    Manzano had three individual double gold medalists:
   

Marissa Campbell, girls 200-yard freestyle (2 minutes, 0.83 seconds); 500 free (5:28.95)
   

Taylor Busby, boys 100 butterfly (57.01); 100 free (51.16)
   

Arne Meeuw, boys 200 individual medley (2:04.30); 100 backstroke (57.62)
    The boys' 400 free relay team also won in 3:31.37.
    The girls 11-team APS city championships are this weekend. The boys compete Jan. 28-29.