Darien Well Represented in Whirlwind Diving Competition

This past weekend, the Whirlwind Dive Team hosted its annual invitational diving event, including a number of Darien divers.

Over three days, Whirlwind ran 42 total events at its home pool in the New Canaan YMCA. There were 165 divers representing 14 teams from six states competing.

In a sign of how strong the area competition is, eleven of those teams had at least one first place finish between the J.O., Synchro, Novice and Masters events.

There were a number of Darien divers competing in the event: Of the divers with top 5 finishes in JO events, Piper Van Wagenen (3rd & 6th), Owen Stevens (2nd & 2nd), Wiley Schmidt (3rd & 4th) and Timothy Luz (3rd). In addition, Kyla Pech (10th) was a top 10 finisher. Other competitors from Darien include Molly Klein, Kyle O'Donnell, and Olivia Piazza.

Whirlwind had another strong performance from its Junior Olympic competitors. The team had 16 top 5 finishes from nine of its JO divers—aside from the Darien divers mentioned above, these included August Hibler, Owen Stevens, Rachel Burston, Genevieve Angerame, Kylie Towbin, Kirsten Parkinson and Timothy Luz. Overall, in JO events, Whirlwind had 27 top 10 finishes, including 5 first place, 4 second place and 4 third place.

August Hibler, of Pound Ridge, NY, had a fantastic diving debut for the team, claiming first place in both of his JO events. Genevieve Angerame (of Orange) put up her best three-meter score, propelling her to first place in that event. Rachel Burston (of Stamford) & Kylie Towbin (of New Canaan) continued their strong seasons, each winning their one-meter events.

Whirlwind's next home meet will be the Summer Junior Region 1 Championship competition on June 14-16.

Editor's note: A version of this article previously was posted as an announcement on various Patch websites. In the version on this Web page, Darien divers are named.