Once, twice, three times her feet hit the board and a silent, inaudible splash rippled over the water as the repercussions of the board sounded throughout the silent pool. Senior Alli Shereda came up from her final dive at Fraser’s pool October 29^th against Romeo.

“I try to never push my kids into anything, because if you do they won’t stick with it,” Shereda’s mom, anddiving coach, said, “I am so proud of her and the work she’s put in.”

Shereda resurfaced to cheers from her teammates and the crowd. The announcer came on and proclaimed to the crowd that she had beat the long standing Varsity recorded of 260.5 by Michelle Schuster, who set the record in the early ‘80s, by 7.5 points.

“When I was getting up there for my last dive I wasn’t really thinking about anything. I wasn’t thinking about beating the record or what everybody in the crowd thought, because that meet I had a lot of fun,” Shereda said.

Shereda had experimented with many activities to try and find something she was good at. She began diving her freshmen year, but she did not have much of an interest until her coach took her aside and asked if she really wanted to continue to do diving. Instead of quitting, the conversation drove her to get better.

“I hated it freshmen year. When I first started I hated the sport, absolutely despised it. I’d get up on the board and I’d be afraid to throw everything,” Shereda said, “My coach took me aside one day and said I wasn’t going to go anywhere with this, I wasn’t happy, so why was I doing it? And I said ‘Whoa, you saying that makes me want to prove you wrong.’”

Three years later at the last meet of her senior year she did prove him wrong, later texting him “Guess who broke the Varsity record for diving?”

“She could be a successful college diver, she’s got the tenacity to compete at the next level; she has the head to compete at the next level,” Coach Nowinski said, “I don’t know if she’s going to go to level one or two, that will be determined by her and her parents, and discussions with myself. But whichever level she goes to I know she’s going to be a productive member of that team.”

Shereda has come far from freshmen year, and she is planning on continuing into college, which will be more challenging than the high school level.  Shereda now holds both the girls fresh/soph and girls varsity record.

“I do plan on diving in college. I want to go to Perdue University.  But as of right now I have other colleges that have been coming to me,” Shereda said.

Shereda finished first at Macomb Area Conference (MAC) White Girls Division Meet in diving with a score of 375.45. Shereda and fellow diver, freshmen Amanda Hurchalla, the two went to states a few weeks later. Shereda became our first state champion for swimming/diving boys or girls. Shereda pulled ahead of her competition on her last dive of the Div II Championship by five points. Shereda achieved the ALL-American consideration and score of 412 points. Shereda plans to continue diving and hopes to enter the Olympics in either Rio in 2016, or Tokyo in 2020.