Prospect's Liva smoothly dives toward postseason success

There's a certain smooth symmetry to the high school diving career of Dana Liva.

Measured against the state's best competitors, she's enjoyed parabolic success in her time competing for Prospect.

Her state meet finishes have been: 12th as a freshman, sixth as a sophomore and fourth as a junior.

Plotted against her Mid-Suburban League competitors, the achievement curve has been predictable in a different way: a perfectly straight line of consecutive first-place finishes.

When Liva competes starting at 6 p.m. Friday at Barrington in the MSL meet, she'll gracefully be pursuing conference diving championship No. 4.

"I never thought that was the kind of thing that could actually happen," said Liva. "But now that it could, I think it's pretty neat."

Noteworthy about Liva's arc of improvement is just how much progress she's made in her senior season. Prospect diving coach Antonino Bondi credits her attention to detail with the significant improvement in scores she's shown in her final season of high school competition.

"The thing about her is she's never satisified," Bondi said. "Some athletes work had to get to a certain level and then they say, 'That's good enough.' When Dana gets to that level, she thinks, 'How can I be better?' She's always looking for the next challenge."

That approach, applied year-round to her sport as Liva has strived for excellence, led to a rewriting of the Prospect diving record book.

Liva has delivered team-record scores of 311.75 for six dives and 499.50 for 11 dives. Both those efforts came this fall, though neither performance was completely satisfactory according to her own internal judging system, as 320 had been her goal for six dives and and an even 500 for 11 dives.

Perhaps her family background has some influence on the competitive nature Liva exhibits.

Her father, Eric, is a veteran gymnastics and diving coach, and he excelled as a collegiate diver himself at Illinois State. Most recently, he's been in charge of Stevenson's boys gymnastics team.

"You have to understand, in our family, everything's competitive," he said. "It doesn't matter if we're playing cards, checkers - it's cutthroat.

"We could be playing Uno and a street fight might break out, you know?"

That kind of attitude might help explain why Liva was so disappointed with her 499.5 11-dive score, which easily won at Buffalo Grove's invitational in September.

And also why Eric Liva likened his daughter's general disposition on the ride home from the recent Evanston Invitational to that of a "wet cat."

Against much tougher competition (and with tougher judging) at Evanston, Dana Liva had finished second with a score of 448.95. Finishing ahead of her at 458.05 was Naperville Central junior Sydney Dusel, the only returning diver from last year's state meet who'd beaten Liva.

Adding to the aggravation was that Liva had been in the lead after the first 10 dives.

"My favorite line of hers," said Eric Liva, "is this: 'If winning isn't important, why do they keep score?' "

Meanwhile, Dana Liva says she's looking forward to another chance to keep score against Dusel and all of Illinois' best divers. The state meet will also be at Evanston, Nov. 21 and 22.

"It's definitely good to know what you need to work on, and that's what diving against the best shows you," said Liva. "For me, it's fine-tuning my final three dives."

Apparently, Wisconsin liked her tune plenty already. Liva took a recruiting visit to Madison, Wis., just after Labor Day, fell in love with the campus and diving program and committed to the Badgers shortly after.

Before that next phase of her diving career, though, Liva will keep concentrating on the task at hand.

The main difference in her high scores this year, according to both Bondi and Eric Liva, is better results with what is called "riding the board." That's the art of minimizing the disturbance on the approach steps, which maximizes the energy the board can release.

"It's all about control, and attention to detail - practice," said Bondi. "You can see the results pretty plainly. She's getting height on all her dives, and that translates to better scores."

In the final analysis, it's safe to say that Liva's arc as a Prospect diver has been impressive. All that remain are a few end-of-season tabulations - with a certain emphasis on the very last one.

"I have some numbers in mind," she said, looking ahead to the state meet. "I'm just going to try to let it bring out the best in me."