By Erin Keaveny, Swimming World Contributor.
USA Diving’s High Performance Squad is made up of divers who exhibit the most potential, skill, and determination to become future U.S. Olympic Team Members. The squad is categorized into three tiers.
Tier One includes the Nations’ most accomplished divers including former Olympians. Tier Two includes Olympic hopefuls who are mostly in college or recently graduated. Finally, Tier Three includes the High Performance squad’s newest and often youngest members, all junior divers.
Some of the High Performance Squad’s Tier Three members are packing up their things and heading to college for the first time this year. Here’s where they’re going:
Jessie Creed – University of Miami (Fla.)
The former Illinois and Florida High School State Champion enjoys surfing, reading, and skiing. She trains for hours a day, five days a week. All that training is about to pay off as she takes her talents to the University of Miami this fall.
Jessie Creed’s new roster picture from the University of Miami.
Max Flory – University of Miami (Fla.)
Flory is the 2018 USA Junior World Championships Trials Platform Champion, a two-time Junior Pan American Championships team member, and recently came in 4th on platform at the Junior National Championships. Flory started diving when he was six, and now trains six hours a day six days a week. He will be joining Creed at the University of Miami.
Max Flory’s new roster picture from the University of Miami
Markie Hopkins – Northwestern University
Hopkins is a three-time USA Diving Jr. National Qualifier, and recently came in 3rd place on one-meter at Jr. Nationals. She will be taking her talents fro Mission Viejo, California to Northwestern.
Hopkin’s headshot from her USA Diving profile.
Ali Watson – Duke University
Watson is the 2018 USA Diving Junior National Champion on Platform. She trains for four hours a day, six days a week. She has said that she always has to have Air Head Bites in her bag during a meet, but she doesn’t eat them during competition. She will be competing for Duke this year.
Photo Courtesy: Ali Watson
Lyle Yost – The Ohio State University
Yost was the Junior National Champion on platform (2018) and 3m synchro (2017), he is also a two time Junior Pan American Games Bronze Medalist. Yost started diving when he was 8, and qualified for his first Junior National Championships soon after in 2011. He qualified for his first senior nationals in 2015. Yost will be staying local, and diving for The Ohio State University.
View this post on Instagram