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LEWISBURG — This time, Lexi Spaciano wasn’t about to leave herself short.

And with a consistency that left nothing to chance, the District 2 champion from Dallas, finished her short but spectacular high school diving career on the state medal stand.

Spaciano scored a 342.25 and a seventh-place finish Saturday during the PIAA Class 2A girls diving championships to wind up with her most coveted prize — a chance to stand among the eight best divers in Pennsylvania during the medal ceremony.

“I’m excited to have a medal,” said Spaciano, a senior who only began diving in high school competition as a junior last year. “Oh yeah, especially being seeded 11th and thinking about last year.”

Her first dip into the state championships turned out to be a whirlwind.

She finished third in the 2016 District 2 championships, and figured she’d have to wait awhile before getting another shot to make states. But Spaciano was a last-minute replacement in last year’s PIAA field, and after entering as a 23rd seed among 24 state divers, she worked her way to the 16-athlete finals and finished 10th overall.

Her score of 337.30 left Spaciano just 7.2 points shy of eighth place and a state medal.

“She got the taste last year,” Dallas diving coach Paul Mierzwa said. “With Lexi, they picked her at the last minute last year. She had a week off without even practicing, nobody expected much from her, and she finished in the top 10. We had a lot of hope for her this year. She wanted a medal. We knew she had the skill and talent to do it. She worked very hard.

“She definitely wanted to get there.”

Tunkhannock diver Sawyer Aitken got to the boys Class 2A finals again — and finished 14th for a second straight season.

The junior overcame a slow start to make the top nine following his four dives of the preliminary round, fueling his hopes of medaling.

“After my first four, I was like, ‘All right, I think I’ve got it now,’ ” Aitken said. “I kind of bombed out on my fifth dive. I had to re-focus.”

His backward somersault with 2 1/2 twists turned off the judges, who scored the dive with an average of 18.9 and put Aitken in danger of missing the cut for the semifinals.

He made it, though, and came back with a 2 1/2 somersault tuck on his next-to-last dive in the finals. It registered his highest score of the day — a 30.0 — and helped secure another top 14 finish at states for Aitken. That was eight spots behind West Scranton senior Michael Bruno, the District 2 champion who placed sixth in the PIAA championships with a score of 364.35.

“I’m happy,” Aitken said. “I didn’t do worse than last year, but I didn’t do any better. I’m happy I made the finals. I’m hoping to do better next year. I’ll be doing a lot of training over the summer for diving. Maybe next year I’ll be able to medal.”

While Spaciano was the only Class 2A diver to get to the medal stand, she joined two of her Dallas diving teammates in the state finals.

Her classmate Maddie Ross finished 15th overall with 300.75 points, while Mountaineers junior Gianna Leo ended 16th with 287.35 points.

“We have a great coach,” Spaciano said, noting three divers from Dallas finished among the best 16 finishers in Pennsylvania’s Class 2A field.

Both Ross and Leo missed an opportunity to move higher in the final standings on their last attempts.

No such trouble for Spaciano, who averaged a score of over 30 on her first dive of the day and ended it with an average score of 29.75 on an reverse forward pike.

“No one dive did she do significantly better than any other dive she did all year,” Mierzwa said. “But she was very, very consistent.”

Still, her score of 33.50 on a forward somersault in the semifinal round made Spaciano smile.

It also helped her to reach No. 5 among the 16 divers who made the finals, before she slipped a couple spaces to seventh.

Despite the high standing, Spaciano didn’t believe she’d have enough in her repertoire to challenge the top three finishers.

“No,” Spaciano said, “but only because I saved my back 1 1/2 (somersault) for my last round. It’s a little shaky. But I was happy with my score.”

For other sports stories, click here.

Dallas sophomore Gianna Leo, diving coach Paul Mierzwa, seventh-place state medalist Lexi Spaciano and Maddie Ross stand together following the PIAA Class 2A girls diving championships at Bucknell University’s Kinney Natatorium. All three divers made the state finals and Spaciano made the medal stand.
https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/web1_dallas-dive-1.jpeg.optimal.jpegDallas sophomore Gianna Leo, diving coach Paul Mierzwa, seventh-place state medalist Lexi Spaciano and Maddie Ross stand together following the PIAA Class 2A girls diving championships at Bucknell University’s Kinney Natatorium. All three divers made the state finals and Spaciano made the medal stand.

By Paul Sokoloski

[email protected]

Reach Paul Sokoloski at 570-991-6392 or on Twitter @TLPaulSokoloski

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