Naperville North's Petersen climbing back to full strength

All things considered it was a pretty good day on the diving board for Naperville North's Thomas Petersen.

The Huskies senior, who has been fighting a bad strain of the flu, was strong enough Saturday to finish 10th with a score of 405.60 against top-flight competition at the Hinsdale Central Diving Meet, which is billed as a mini-state meet.

Petersen — who finished ninth at state last year and earlier this year topped the competition at the Naperville North, Barrington and Neuqua Valley invites — admitted that he was not yet at full strength. He's also a little rusty after missing a week of practice and last week's New Trier Invite, another major event for Illinois divers.

“I felt a little better today,” Petersen said. “But I'm not in the best shape. I've got to get back in the swing of things and get more power off the board. But I bounce back pretty quickly, so I should at full strength in about a week.”

“He showed that he's coming back,” said Naperville North diving coach Vicki Morrow. “He did some new dives and he was OK but not at his best. He still needs to build up his endurance. But this was a good meet to show us what we need to do going forward.”

Morrow thought the effects of the illness were most telling in Petersen's reverses and twists.

Although he did rally with high scores on the 10th dive of the day an inward 2½, a dive with a high degree of difficulty that Petersen just added to his program this year.

Before he caught the flu Petersen, according to Morrow, was training well and on track for his goal to finish top five in state.

“That's still my goal,” Petersen said. “I just have to keep improving. Mostly, I have to work on my finishes and get my newer dives rocking for state,” said Petersen, who plans to dive in college and has Division I schools such as Western Kentucky and Arizona State interested.

His coach, who is even more optimistic about his chances at state, believes he can finish in the top three.

“He's very consistent,” Morrow said. “He doesn't have many highs and lows. And he's cool as a cucumber. This is my first year as Naperville North's coach and he's been like having another coach. The other kids really look up to him.”

Chris Canning of Loyola won the meet with a score of 496.65, followed by Alex Streightiff of Lake Forest with 468.65 and Seamus Scotty of Lyons Township with 450.55

Loyola scored 25 points to top Lake Forest in the team competition, which includes the scores of the divers in the frosh-soph meet. Downers Grove North was third with 17 and York was fourth with 16.

York's Peter Barabolak won the frosh-soph competition with a score of 406.40.