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Liva leaves MSL meet with a record effort

According to both Prospect senior diver Dana Liva and her coach, Antonino Bondi, Liva's performance in Friday's Mid-Suburban League championship meet was far from perfect.

The judges, at the very least, sure liked it a lot.

Liva completed a four-year run of MSL championships with a meet and pool record score of 492.45 at Barrington High School.

"There's definitely two or three of them I can improve," said Liva, who will dive at Wisconsin next year. "Mostly little things."

The one big thing Liva improved over the years is her overall approach.

"I've had great coaching, and that has helped a lot," said Liva. "I think when I started, I would get too wrapped up in trying to be perfect on every dive. That's one area where coach Bondi has helped me a lot. I think it's easier for me to get in the right frame of mind.

"Now it more like, 'I know this dive, now it's just, go out there and do it.' "

Bondi, meanwhile, turns his attention to helping Liva address those smaller-scale specifics in advance of the state-qualifying sectional meets in two weeks.

"Mostly, a very good performance today," he said. "We definitely have some things we can fine-tune - details."

Seniors Sydney Plichta and Sarah McTague gave Fremd a nice headstart in the overall team race by finishing second and third.

Plichta came in at 422.7, and McTague at 375.2.

"We started together in diving as freshmen, and we've been together the whole way," said McTague. "She's been an awesome friend the entire time."

The importance of their finish to the team race wasn't lost on Plichta.

"It seems like a lot of times it can come down to how diving went," said Plichta, "so it's nice to know we did our part."

Palatine junior Elizabeth Johns, who's just now completing her second high school season in diving, grabbed the fourth-place spot with a score of 356.25.

Conant's Emily Weingart finished fifth at 343.45, just ahead of back-to-back Hersey finishers Madeline Bovino (336.7) and Kelly Haines (322.1).

Also generating point-scoring finishes were Bailey Hornstein of Conant (318.9), Caiti Poland of Schaumburg (299.1), Andrea Ori of Palatine (295.55) and Nathalie Castro (284.35) and Leah Hall (279.2) of Hoffman Estates.

Diving counts as one event in the MSL championship meet, in which Fremd is the two-time defending champ. The meet resumes with the medley relay at 11 a.m. Saturday at Barrington.

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