Liberty freshman Keller Pooley competed in the District XI Class 3A Diving Championships along with 17 other female divers on Saturday at Emmaus High School.

“I got 30 or 40 points higher than my last 11-dive meet, so I feel pretty good,” Pooley said. “I was proud of it.”

Pooley finished in 14th place with a total score of 292.05.

“She is very consistent with what she does at practice and in other meets so she was right where she needed to be. She handles pressure pretty well and Keller is probably one of the most calm competitors,” said Liberty coach Emily Kocis. “Keller is one of the hardest working divers outside of actual diving practices. She also does dryland training, so she is actually training seven days a week.”

Pooley got high marks for her reverse dive.

“I did a lot of dives in practice this week, and I was just trying to do the same thing I did in practice,” she said.

Pooley only had six dives when the season began but was able to get five more by the first EPC meet in January.

“The ones I knew how to do more, obviously got higher scores and some surprised me with higher scores,” said Pooley. “After my first dive, I started to feel better because I was doing pretty good. Usually before each dive, my coach was telling me to jump more or reach up, and it helped.”

Parkland’s Lexi Lehman became the district champion after placing first with a score of 422.05.