The University of Idaho Dive team worked to maintain strong team dynamics through the challenges of COVID-19. Now they look to get ready for the upcoming Western Athletic Conference Championships.
The UI dive team consists of five young members, two of which are freshmen and the other three sophomores. Sophomore divers, Allison Shimp and Hailey Faith said the team wasn’t able to compete as much as they would have liked because of COVID-19.
Several members had to quarantine throughout certain periods of the season, which makes practice difficult for such a small team. Whether it was an illness scare, the absence of meets or quarantine, the dive team must face these obstacles to prepare for the meets.
The team was able to compete in only three meets during the 2020-2021 regular season. Faith said a typical season would have the divers competing in five to seven meets. The meet against Dixie State on Jan. 30 was an opportunity for them to swim at their home facility, where they said they are most comfortable. But their opponents do not have a diving program, so the divers were competing unopposed like they might during a practice.
The other two dive meets were held at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Arizona. Both Shimp and Faith said they are familiar with using NAU’s facility, which has a platform dive instead of only one-meter and three-meter springboards like UI’s facility. This gives the divers more time and opportunity to practice in their strongest events.
“We wish that we could have more practice on that event, but we’re strongest in our springboard events, which is just a one and three-meter,” Faith said.
Because the dive team is so small, Faith and Shimp said they have developed a close bond of sportsmanship and sisterhood with each other. Through that bond, older divers were able to help the freshmen adapt to the new environment of collegiate athletics.
The divers were able to grow close to each other even with COVID-19 presenting barriers like the inability for physical closeness, quarantining athletes and limiting the number of people allowed in a space.
“We know that like freshman year is really hard for a lot of people right now, with COVID so we’re trying to like make it as fun as we can for them,” Faith said.
Both Shimp and Faith said they feel they’ve improved their diving techniques through consistent practices and lack of competition.
“I’ve improved a lot from last year, and like difficulty, I’ve gotten some harder dives on the one-meter. I think I’ve cleaned up my three-meter a lot,” Faith said.
Shimp said with the dive team as a whole improving by the day, they feel they are ready to put up some good competition during the WAC Championships.
“We all have like good dives that are pretty consistent, that are ready for ready to conference,” Shimp said.
Shimp and Faith said they are looking forward to the final competition of the season. The last dive meets of 2021 will be the WAC Championships on Feb. 25-27. at NAU in Flagstaff, AZ.
Sierra Pesnell can be reached at [email protected]