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O-R Athlete of the Week: Emily King, Canon-McMillan

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Emily King

Name: Emily King

School: Canon-McMillan

Grade: Senior

Sport: Diving

King’s week: Before her final dive in a meet against Mt. Lebanon last week, King looked up at the scoreboard and saw her score was 216.

A solid final dive would’ve put her around her average, but she ended up with much more.

King broke the Canon-McMillan record for a six-dive meet with a score of 257.02

When King emerged from the water, her coach, Desiree Anderson, broke the news to her.

“She kept saying, “Did you see your score?” and I said no,” King said. “She said, “Take a guess of what it was.” And that’s when it hit me.”

King also has the record for points in a full 11-dive meet, which she hopes to break this year at the WPIAL Championships.

The six-dive record stood for a decade and the old mark happened to belong to Henderson, who is in her first year coaching diving at Canon-McMillan.

“At first I was like really, did I break it?,” King said. “Then I just started jumping up and down and everyone else was jumping up and down too.”

King credited Anderson with helping her get to a point where she could break her record.

“After I finish a dive she’s there to tell me what I did right or wrong. She’s pushed me to get a new dive, which was the one last dive that got me the record. It was a back one-and-a-half somersault with a pike. It has a higher degree of difficulty, so that helps my score.”

Aiming to finish strong: King first became interested in diving from watching the Olympics and first tried it the summer before her freshman year.

She’s qualified for the WPIAL meet all four years at Canon-McMillan and has a best finish of 12th, which came last year.

She will not dive in college, this will be her last season competing.

“My goal is to finish in the top eight, because the top eight get medals and I want a medal,” King said.

College decision: Though King is still deciding on a college, she’s sure about her major. She’s going to study Forensic Science. She said she’s down to two schools, Penn State and Waynesburg.

“I like watching true crime shows and I like science,” King said. “It’s very interesting to me.”

Spring fling: If diving wasn’t enough of a thrill sport, King found another high-intensity activity in the spring. She’s a pole vaulter for the Big Macs’ track and field team.

She also plays recreational soccer in the Route 19 league.

In tune: King is a member of two different bands at Canon-McMillan. She’s in both concert band and marching band and plays a different instrument in each one.

In the marching band she plays the drums and flute in the concert band.

She enjoys performing in each discipline and there’s some competitiveness involved in it as well.

“We have a winter concert and a spring concert every year,” King said. “We also go on a trip every year for a competition. This year we’re going to Williamsburg, Virginia.”

Compiled by Jerin Steele

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