Baxter’s Russell wins 1-meter diving state championship

MARSHALLTOWN — With around a five-point deficit heading into the final dive of the night, Baxter junior Camryn Russell needed a big score to rally her back to the front.

Instead of attempting a dive with a low difficulty score, Russell pulled off an impressive final leap when the most difficult dive in her lineup resulted in 53.3 points.

That was enough to move her back into the lead and Iowa City West’s Kamila Swanson couldn’t quite do enough in her final attempt.

Russell won her first 1-meter diving state championship with a score of 488.25. Swanson was the runner-up with a 486.9.

Swanson needed a score of 48.66 to win the championship but came up 1.35 points shy at the Iowa High School Girls State Diving Championships on Friday at the Marshalltown YMCA in Marshalltown.

“I knew I had to go after it and not hold back,” Russell said about her final attempt. “I had been hitting it in practice and doing well with it lately. I just tried to do what I do in practice and if I did that it would work out.”

It was only the third time Russell attempted that final dive this season. She opened the season with it and struggled with the twist. But brought it back out at regionals and needed it to win the title against Swanson.

Russell’s final dive had a 2.6 degree of difficulty, while Swanson’s last attempt was a 1.7.

“I like to save harder ones for the last three rounds because I know my girls are good enough to handle that,” Grinnell/BGM/Baxter diving coach Deidre Freeman Huff said. “It gives them a little confidence going into those final dives.

“There was a lot of pressure on Camryn in that spot. She did a great job coming back and finishing strong.”

Russell was in third after the first round of dives. A score of 48.4 on her second attempt moved her into second. She followed that with a 49.5 and then went in front with a 54 and a 50 to complete the first cutoff.

The top 20 scores after five dives moved on and they cut the field of 32 down to 16 after eight dives. The top six finishers earned a spot on the podium.

Russell led by 15 points after six dives but only held an advantage of 4.35 after seven attempts. The lead grew slightly after eight attempts, but she moved to second following scores of 43.7 and 40.8.

That’s when she needed a big finale to give herself a chance. The only time Russell checked the scoreboard throughout the night was after Swanson scored a 54 to take the lead on her ninth dive.

“It was nerve wracking,” Russell said. “I tried not to get too stressed out. I knew what dives she had left. I was thinking about what she did in warmups and what she hadn’t done in the meet yet. I knew based on degree of difficulty that I would have a chance.”

Swanson led by 5.45 points with two dives to go. Russell’s 40.8 on her 10th attempt closed the gap slightly.

Then Russell took advantage of her high degree of difficulty dive to move back into the lead early in Round 11. Freeman Huff said Russell posted a score in the 50s with the dive at regionals, too.

“I just like having a good last dive so it can help me get some points at the end,” Russell said. “It’s a hard dive, but it’s still a solid one. It could be a strong ending.”

Russell’s first three seasons as a diver for the Grinnell/BGM/Baxter squad has produced a title, fifth-place finish and seventh-place finish.

Southeast Polk’s Holli Hetzer finished third with a scored of 449.75. Kate Hauser of Marshalltown took fourth with a 417.95 and Campbell Dopler of Bettendorf came in fifth with a 405.95.

Grinnell/BGM/Baxter’s Norah Nicol finished one spot off the podium in seventh. That’s a place Russell was familiar with after her freshman season.

Swanson, who recently committed to the University of Iowa diving team, finished third last year and 23rd as a sophomore.

It was second state diving champion at Grinnell/BGM/Baxter in the past three seasons.

“I guess I got lucky with the talent that came in and wanted to dive,” said Freeman Huff, who dove collegiately at Iowa and was part of the United States national team from 2012-2015.

Grinnell is not the biggest of cities in Iowa, but Baxter is by far the smallest town with a diver on it this season.

Of the 30 qualifiers who are not on the Grinnell/BGM/Baxter diving team, 28 of them are part of programs from much larger communities. Algona is smaller than Grinnell and Hauser attends West Marshall High School but dives for the Marshalltown Bobcats.

Russell is probably the only one though who has to drive 45 minutes just to attend practice every day.

“I think competing against everyone in the state is cool because I’m first out of everybody,” Russell said. “But I also know that I put a lot of time into this between driving, practice and meets. It’s nice that it actually paid off.”

Freeman Huff is a Grinnell alum herself. She knows what it’s like to dive for a smaller program in Iowa. That’s one of the reasons she wanted to return to her hometown to coach a sport she was very successful in.

“It’s amazing for Camryn,” Freeman Huff said. “I grew up in Grinnell and she’s part of a smaller community than that. It was amazing for me to have that experience myself. That’s why I came back to Grinnell. I want them to know they also can do this despite not having more access to pools, diving boards and even coaching to an extent.”

Russell is unsure about her future at this point. She’s also a standout hurdler for the Baxter Bolts. If she does want a future in diving, Freeman Huff expects her to have plenty of options.

“Her future is up to her. If she wants to do both track and diving, an NCAA Division 3 school would probably allow her to do that,” Freeman Huff said. “But she can definitely dive at a bigger school like Iowa if she chooses to.”

Notes: Russell entered the state meet following a score of 430.6 at regionals. Swanson scored a 494.2 at regionals, while Hetzer posted a regional score of 491.1. Russell (520.25) did have the highest 11-dive score of the season though.