The opportunity to attend state dive is an excellent achievement that is extremely difficult to attain. This year, 23 girls qualified for state, two of them being North Star divers. Star juniors Taylor Kramer and Carly Beals both qualified for the 2026 girls dive state championship. Beals has been diving for nine years, whereas Kramer has been diving for just two years.
Prodigy Taylor Kramer (11) initiates her dive with an elegant backflip. This masterpiece would earn her seventh place and medal to go along with it.
When asking Beals what goes into being a diver, she expresses that “you have to have a lot of patience and courage.”
She goes on by explaining that some days are better than others and that it can be easy to get in your head when you don’t get new dives right away. Regardless of the difficulties, she works hard everyday to achieve new dives and perfect her old ones. She continues to work towards blocking out the negative thoughts by just doing her dives rather than overthinking them. Beals enjoys diving because she feels rewarded when achieving a dive after so much hard work. She also loves being able to form new friendships with other teammates
Kramer believes that in order to be a good diver you need to be calm and collective. She claims that “it is important to not overthink it and worry about each dive, instead you should just do it to your best ability.” Kramer used to do competitive cheer so jumping off the board while doing flips is right up her alley. Kramer emphasizes the importance of repetition in diving. She expresses that she achieved her dives through “hard work and practice because practice is what really makes you better.”
To qualify for state, it is required to score at least 300 points in a meet with 11 dives. Both girls did not fail to meet these benchmarks. Beals qualified at the Knight Invite (December 19) with a score of 329.90. She considers her hardest dives to be her back one and a half and her reverse one and a half. Kramer qualified for state at the North Side Quad on (January 22) with a score of 301.6, her hardest dives being the front double and back flip one and a half twist.
Both girls did an excellent job at state as they balanced the intense pressure of performing at a state event. Beals ended up medaling, placing eighth, whereas Kramer ended up placing 20th.
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