For the third straight year, Central Catholic's Nicole Sagl, a resident of the Northwestern School District, captured the District 11 Diving Championship this past Saturday. Southern Lehigh's Erin Donnelly finished second in districts, nearly 100 points off the pace set by Sagl, capturing second place and the final Class AA invitation to states, edging out teammate Emily Marshall.

The victory gives Sagl her third trip to the PIAA Diving Championships at Bucknell University, which are scheduled for March 12-15. Perhaps the third trip to states will be the charm after Sagl posted a fifth-place finish in 2012 and a sixth-place finish last year.

Sagl scored a 32.25 on her first dive to take the early lead at districts and never relinquished the lead. The only competition on the Class AA side was between Donnelly and Marshall before Donnelly scored a 32.30 on her final dive to edge Marshall by just under seven points.

"The other girls had some really good dives and I was really proud of them," said Sagl after collecting her gold medal.

Each season, Sagl has increased her margin of victory, growing it from just over 81 points in 2012 to 89.5 points last season before stretching it to 99.35 points this season. After the meet, Sagl said that she knew she was having a good day, but believes her day could have been even better.

"I nailed some of my dives, but there were others where I could have done better," said Sagl, who scored a 43.40 on her final dive of the day. "Overall, it was a good day and I'm happy with how I finished."

Sagl's first dive of the day was her second lowest scoring dive, but she was able to string together a stretch of four straight dives where she scored over 40 points on each dive. By the end of the meet, six of Sagl's 11 dives resulted in scores over the 40 point threshold. It's a bad sign for the competition that the Central Catholic junior believes she's getting stronger in a couple areas that she had identified as weaknesses.

"I definitely felt good coming in," said Sagl. "My two categories that before I wasn't that strong in, my back and my reverse, they were pretty much on it and I was feeling really confident coming into this meet."

Having a couple of appearances at states should help Sagl's performance at Bucknell this year as she looks to climb closer to the top of the Class AA finishers.

"I'm looking forward to the amazing competition that I'm going to be up against and challenging myself," Sagl said.