Applebee learning on the fly
By MARK JOHNSON
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mjohnson@morrisdailyherald.com
Based on the nature of her athletic endeavors, it seems that Seneca High School sophomore three-sport participant Alyssa Applebee is most comfortable when she is airborne.
Tuesday night, Applebee completed her final regular-season meet as a member of the Morris Community High School girls swimming and diving team. SHS co-ops with the Redskins in swimming, as it does not have a team of its own. Applebee also plays basketball at SHS and is a member of the school's track and field team, where her primary event is the pole vault.
Last spring, Applebee capped her freshman year by placing sixth at the IHSA Class 1A Track and Field State Meet in the vault. Track season is still months away for the sophomore version of Applebee, but she is already making headlines. Last week, she established a new MCHS record in diving in a meet at Kankakee. Her score of 219.35 for six dives bettered the old record of 209.75 established by Shawna Cook in 1990. MCHS records date to the early 1980s.
"We did it at the very beginning [of the meet]," said Applebee. When MCHS is at home, diving is held in the middle stages of the meet. "Right after we warmed up, we went right into it. I'd say yeah, that was a good thing for me. That way, after you warm up, you don't have to go back and just sit there for a while, and then just get to warm up in one [dive] before you compete. You get to warm up all of them."
As a freshman, the highest six-dive score Applebee recorded was a 161.95. She began challenging herself more this season, which is the best way for a diver to record higher overall scores in a hurry.
"She has been trying dives with a lot higher degree of difficulty," said MCHS Head Coach Joanne Engle. "What they do is take the scores from the three judges for each dive, and multiply it by the D.D. A D.D. can range from a 1.4 to, well, a 2.3 is the highest Alyssa is doing, but you can go higher. Once you factor in the multiplier, that gives you the total score for that dive."
Breaking the record required Applebee to give a strong performance, from start to finish.
"I thought I hit most of my dives pretty well," she said. "The one I really hit the best was my reverse. It is just a 1.6 [degree of difficulty], but I nailed it."
In case there was any thought that Applebee's effort was a fluke, she went out and submitted another score Tuesday at Pontiac that was higher than the old record. She had a 210.45, keeping alive her season-long string of first-place dual finishes.
"She is diving really, really well," said Engle. "Her last dive [at Pontiac] wasn't as good as it could have been. If it had been a little better, she would have broken her own record."
When Applebee joined the MCHS swimming and diving program last fall, she was a rookie in the sport. She did participate in gymnastics for 10 years before giving them up as an eighth-grader so she could participate in high school sports.
"It helped me a lot with diving," said Applebee of her gymnastics experience. "All of the twisting is very similar. I was already used to twisting and doing flips."
Cross country, golf and volleyball are offered as girls sports to SHS students. Applebee instead became one of 10 SHS students currently taking advantage of the co-op program. Her aunt, Terri Gillette, is an MCHS assistant coach and one of four of Applebee's family members who were swimmers in the MCHS program.
"Really, my aunt Terri was going to coach swimming there, and Mrs. Engle, the head coach, is my grandma's neighbor," said Applebee. "They wanted me to try it, and I did. I guess I just tried diving at the first practice my freshman year, and they decided I wasn't half bad."
The MCHS coaching staff helped speed up Applebee's learning curve.
"Coach Wes Faris — he's the diving coach there — he has really helped me through both years, and so has Mrs. Engle," said Applebee.
While the Redskins are done with dual meets for 2009, they are not done for the season. This Saturday, they will compete at their conference meet at Oswego. A week later, they will swim and dive at the IHSA Lockport Regional, and if they qualify, the state meet looms the following weekend. During the state series, Applebee and the other event entrants will each dive 11 times rather than six.
What that means is that Applebee has another school record in her sights. The MCHS 11-dive record score is a 361.6, which Abby Kerr established in 1997 in the sectional round. Kerr qualified for the state finals, which Applebee also hopes to accomplish.
"I am excited and nervous at the same time," said Applebee. "I am hoping to break the 11-dive record and make it to state. If I don't, I know I still have two more years to do it."
As Applebee's results in all of her sports demonstrate, she has the tools for success.
"She is just a very talented girl athlete," said Engle. "She's not very big. She is a very small girl who happens to be very, very talented."
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