For much of Saturday's EPC Diving Championships, you had to think that Nicole Sagl wasn't going to get her fourth conference diving championship. Sagl, a Central Catholic senior who lives in the Northwestern School District, was mired in third place after five dives. From there though, she put together an impressive streak of dives, using a 46.20 on her ninth dive to move into second place and a 51.70 on her tenth dive to take over the lead.

"I had a different list last year, but this year, I changed it up and I put all of my difficult dives in the beginning and then put all of my higher [degree of difficulty], but better dives at the end," said Sagl. "I had some dives that were a little bit off, but they weren't horrible, so I knew that I still had a chance at coming back."

Emmaus' Jess Hurlburt was the quick starter in the competition and grabbed an early lead, with Easton's Kelsey Jehl holding on to second. Jehl and Sagl are known for their battles in conference competitions and it looked like Jehl was going to get the better of Sagl in this one. Hurlburt is a freshman who has burst on to the local diving scene and was somewhat of an unknown coming into the meet.

As Sagl started to string together her streak of strong scores, Hurlburt and Jehl didn't make it easy on her. With Sagl having moved to just .20 points behind Hurlburt after nine dives, the Emmaus freshman scored a 42.50 on her tenth dive to give herself a short-lived cushion. Jehl had a 38.40 on her ninth dive and a 38.50 on dive number ten, but Sagl's impressive tenth dive left both of them trailing her going into the final dive of the day.

Both Hurlburt and Jehl, who dove early in each round, scored just 16.20 on their final dives. Parkland's Kelsey German, who was in fourth, but stayed close enough to the top three to be a factor, also put together a good streak of dives and scored a 39.60 on her final dive to put herself into first place. Sagl wasn't brilliant on her final dive, but knowing she only needed a score of 11.60 to win, was able to pick up a score of 24.30 to give her the title.

While Sagl was able to win. She is impressed by the competition, especially from Hurlburt. Of course, once districts roll around, Sagl won't have competition from Jehl, Hurlburt or German, who will all be competing in the Class AAA competition, while Sagl competes in Class AA.

"I feel good," said Sagl. "I know Jess came in this year as a freshman and she's really good. It's great to have new competition to compete against."