The Emmaus diving program has been one of the pleasant surprises of the winter sports season. Under first-year coach David White, the program is seeing a resurgence and has been a competitive part of the swimming and diving season for the school.

White, who was a diver for Emmaus and graduated in 2008, came back to the area after transferring to Lehigh University and returned to his alma mater to help with the diving program. When the head coaching job opened, White was an easy choice to take over.

One of the up and coming divers that White inherited was Serena Speer, who is now a senior and is one of three divers who have been competing for three seasons.

Speer has been swimming since she was five and remembers watching the divers before her youth meets and wanting to add diving to her repertoire. By the time she was seven, Speer started to learn how to dive.

"The mental aspect and the fear factor are hard. It's hard getting up on the board and trying new dives," said Speer.

As a senior, Speer has taken the reins as a leader for the divers, but relies on her teammates to push her, as well.

"We all encourage each other and I'm glad that I have my teammates behind me, because they encourage me and we all encourage each other when we're having bad days or learning new dives," said Speer, who hopes to attend Clarion University and compete on the diving team there.

While the girls side has four divers - Speer, Anna Overholts, Ally Davies and Sara Baran - the boys side has just one competitor in Matt Bussiere, who also competes with the swim team.

"It's a little tough, because I don't get to have him every day," said White of Bussieri's development. "He's got swimming before and after school, so it's just too much to have him diving every day, too. He's shown huge improvements in just the couple weeks that I've had him diving."

As the season progresses, White is optimistic about what's ahead.

"We have some girls who are district qualifiers and we have some girls who we're hoping to see strong showings from and hopefully, take it to the state level," White said.

The goal is for all of the girls to qualify for districts and then hopefully, at least a couple will make it through to the state competition.