BY Casey Musarra

Sophomore Naomi Mark is providing the women’s swimming and diving team something it has not had in three years: a presence on the diving board.

Prior to this season, the lack of divers put the Blue and Gold at an early point disadvantage in their meets.

“Last year coming into meets we knew we were down 32–0 because we didn’t have a diving team,” senior captain Kara Senecal said earlier in the season.

With the addition of Mark, the Blue and Gold have had the opportunity to win meets that they had not been able to win in the past.

Mark, a clinical health studies/physical therapy major, started out her athletic career as a gymnast at age seven, which opened her interest to diving.

At Dansville High School in Dansville, N.Y., Mark was more of a track star than a diving star. Her commitment to both sports forced her to give up gymnastics. She was a two-time sectional champion in the pole vault. Mark also earned all-state honors and is the league record holder in the pole vault. Along with that, she also earned four varsity letters in diving.

Mark began her career at Ithaca College as a pole vaulter. She is still a member of the track and field team, but is limited to the amount of meets she can attend because of her involvement with the diving team.

Despite her success in track, Mark’s true love lies in diving.

“A year off made me realize how much I missed [diving],” Mark said.

Going into her first season with the Bombers’ diving squad, the three-meter dive was an event she had tried but had not mastered.

“I was pretty nervous at first,” Mark said. “I had a bad experience with [the three-meter] in high school, but I’d make myself go up there everyday at practice and just do it.”

Mark said she now likes the three-meter because it gives her more time to do harder dives. Before making her way up to the board, Mark goes through a dry run of her dives on the deck by simulating the moves she is about to perform in the air, running through everything but the landing, of course.

In the opening meet of the season against Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Mark placed first in the one-meter dive. On the season, she has earned three first-place finishes in the one-meter dive and two first-place finishes in the three-meter dive. Mark has also combined for four second-place finishes in both the one- and three-meter dives.

Mark was named the Empire 8 Athlete of the Week following her two wins against William Smith College on Jan. 29 and her first- and second-place finishes in the one-meter and three-meter dives, respectively, in the meet against Le Moyne College on Feb. 2.

Diving Coach Rachel Colf said Mark is an independent worker and prepares her routine mostly on her own.

“She’s a really strong worker,” Colf said. “She practices everything everyday.”

While maintaining the strength of her own dives, Mark is a leader among the other divers, Colf said.

“I rotate dives to strengthen them,” Mark said. “[At practice] I tend to work on ones that I haven’t scored as well on in order to build them up.”

Mark admitted she still gets nervous when she is secluded on the diving board but judging by her scores, that hasn’t negatively affected her performance this season.

“She’s not afraid to try new dives,” Colf said. “And she always gets back up there.”

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