It’s not a slip of your left index finger.
If you typed Cooper junior Peytton Moore – with two Ts – you have correctly spelled her first name. Adding the extra consonant is a family tradition (Erikka and Scott Moore are her parents), but maybe it’s appropriate – she won the last two girls state one-meter diving titles and looks for a third Thursday at the University of Kentucky’s Lancaster Aquatic Center.
To Moore, defending one title – let alone two – is harder than winning one.
“Because there’s a lot more people wanting to improve,” she said. “Everybody’s improving every year, so there’s pressure.”
Cooper diving coach Kristina Jenny has worked with Moore for nearly three years. “She is extremely level-headed and focused,” Jenny said. “She is a calm presence around the pool. Nothing seems to really shake her.”
It takes 11 dives to win a state title. There are five categories (forward, back, reverse, inward and twist) and three positions – straight, pike (bending the body forward at the waist) and tuck (bringing the knees and thighs closer to the chest and heels toward the buttocks), and contestants have to choose from each category.
Seven judges rate each dive on a 1 to 10 scale. The two highest and lowest scores are thrown out, and the remaining five are added and multiplied by a degree of difficulty (DD).
Moore said “probably the twisters” cause her the most angst because she sometimes under-rotates.
“I do a back flip, 2 ½ twists,” she said. “I’ve been working on it for a long time; I have a lot of trouble with it.”
Jenny said Madison Southern junior Reagan Patterson, who finished third last year and second in 2021, is Moore’s greatest challenge. If Moore wins, she would be the third girl from Northern Kentucky to win three in a row. She’d join Scott alumna Lindsey Fox, who won from 2016-18, and Olympian Becky Ruehl, who won five straight one-meter crowns from 1991-95 at Villa Madonna Academy and finished fourth in the 10-meter platform at the 1996 Atlanta Games.
One thing you won’t hear from Moore: gossip.
“I know Peytton is focused on her personal best, whatever that means to her,” Jenny said. “She doesn’t like to talk about competitors.”
A triple threat
Covington Catholic junior Jake Larkin, Ryle junior Landon Isler and Dixie Heights senior Alex Warning could battle for the boys title; they finished 1-2-3 at the regional. Warning was second at state last year, Larkin was third, and Isler was fifth.
Whether on the diving board or pool deck, Kevin McElheney perhaps knows Larkin, Isler and Warning best. He’s their coach at Cincinnati Diving Academy. “They’re all three different,” McElheney said. “Jake is extremely strong, Landon is extremely quick, he has very fast muscle twitch – he spins very quickly. Alex is kind in between the two of those.”
Larkin has been diving for five years. He competes on the 3-meter board and the five, seven and 10-meter platforms, but he said the one-meter has been his favorite since he saw it at Brookwood Swim Club in Edgewood.
“I saw it at the local pool, and it looked interesting,” Larkin said. “And I got into it, and I started to get more serious the last couple years. I think, with high school, I’m definitely doing it the most. I don’t have a fear of heights, but still it can be scary at times.”
Isler did a lot of trampolining before he took up diving as an eighth-grader. “My cousin (Ryle’s Blake Koenigsknecht) was on the swim team, and they were looking for a diver …,” Isler said. “I tried it out for the first year, thought it was fun, and I just haven’t stopped.”
Isler said the reverse 2 ½ Tuck with its 3.0 DD will be the last dive on his list. “It is my hardest dive; it’s just scary, I guess,” he said.
Warning said there’s more to diving than jumping, twisting and entering perpendicular to the water. He said there are multiple variables: lighting, water temperature, the adjustable fulcrum wheel under the board that determines how much the board bends.
And that’s just the physical part. Warning occasionally worries about holding onto a tuck too long and becoming disoriented when he comes out of it.
“It can be quite terrifying sometimes,” he said.
Gates open for the girls 1-meter meet at 9 a.m. Thursday, followed by the boys 1-meter at 4 p.m. Girls swimming preliminaries begin at 9 a.m. Friday (the finals start at 6:45 p.m.), and boys preliminaries start at 9:15 a.m. Saturday, with finals beginning at 6:45 p.m.
For more information, visit https://khsaa.org/2023-state-swimming-and-diving-schedule/.
