Southwick Fails Toughest Boards

SIMI VALLEY —  Ryan Southwick of Royal High was not at all pleased with his diving performance Saturday.

“I did really badly,” he said, lowering his head.

A rather strange reaction considering he finished second in the Royal High invitational at Rancho Simi Community Park, the largest regular-season meet in the region.

The fact that he finished higher than any other area diver in a field of 19 seemed lost on Southwick, who finished fourth in the Southern Section Division I competition last year.

“My entries were bad, I kept arching,” Southwick said. “It seemed like when Jeff [Stabile], my coach, would give me an instruction, I’d do the opposite.”

The worst came on Southwick’s fifth dive, a reverse one and a half. He balked on his approach, turned around and started over, which is an automatic deduction of two points from each of the five judges.

Stabile said Southwick isn’t “as practiced as he could be” because he has been concentrating on three-meter board dives for junior national competition next week in St. Louis.

Southwick’s goal in this meet wasn’t to go home with a medal. His goal was to go home with a video tape of 11 spectacular one-meter springboard dives and a 400-plus score to submit for All-American consideration.

“Needless to say, I’m not sending in this tape,” said Southwick, who finished with 395.95 points, 37.75 points behind Max Bookman of Brentwood.

Southwick, a junior, was one of several divers who performed in front of home video cameras.

In the girls’ division, Kasey Reinhard of Crescenta Valley was doing the same and finished second behind Allison Brennan of Huntington Beach Edison.

However, Reinhard, like Southwick a junior and Division II champion, was happy with her performance and 432.00 score.

“Overall I did pretty well,” said Reinhard, who finished second two years ago in this competition.

Four area divers took medals in the boys’ division. Scott Messer of Harvard-Westlake had a slight lead on Southwick after nine dives, but couldn’t complete the 10th, a front 2 1/2 pike, landing feet first.

“Everything had been going pretty well in this meet until then,” said Messer, who finished third with 380.35 points.

Other medal winners included fifth-place finisher Matthew Doucette of Rio Mesa and Gavin Harry of Royal in sixth.

In the girls’ division, Erin Enriquez of Rio Mesa finished fifth and teammate Jessica Kolb was sixth.