Four divers from Emmaus High School competed in the District 11 Diving championship this past Saturday on their home boards at the high school.

The competition gave the top four divers medals with the top two finishers moving onto compete at states next month. Divers also collected team points for their school going into this weekend’s swimming championships at Parkland High School.

On the girls’ side in the 3A competition, The Hornets’ Elle Bagley finished 10th and teammate Keira Gilboy was just behind her in 11th place.

Gilboy got off to a strong start and led the competition after two dives with a score of 71.05, just .25 ahead of Freedom’s Hayden Taylor. The order shifted after the third round with Taylor and Sam Schultz of Parkland, who had been running third, both picking up high scores on their dives.

Taylor moved into the top spot, while Schultz took over second, bumping Gilboy down to third.

Bagley executed her best dive in the sixth round and moved into eighth place before finishing in 11th place.

Taylor went on to take the gold medal with Northampton’s Bella Kish finishing with a silver medal and both divers guaranteeing themselves spots at Bucknell University where the PIAA championship will be held in mid-March.

Parkland’s Johanna Cook finished third with Schultz finishing fourth overall. Bagley finished with a score of 286.35 and Gilboy posted a 277.30

For the boys, two Emmaus divers also finished back-to-back with Dougie Cornish finishing eighth and Robbie Barnes finishing in ninth place.

A pair of Parkland divers, Harry Epstein and Brad Kunz, jumped out to early leads in the competition with Barnes holding third place after two dives.

Cornish delivered a beautiful double somersault tuck for a score of 40.70 in the third round that moved him into second place with Barnes falling to sixth.

Cornish remained in second, just eight points behind Epstein for the top spot through the fourth round before slipping to third place after five rounds and then sliding out of the medal competition in the latter rounds.

Kunz went on to take the gold medal with a final tally of 370.10 with Cody Smith of Freedom moving his way into a silver medal finishing with a score of 368.55. Kunz and Smith will compete at the PIAA competition. Northampton brothers Alex (353.90) and Andrew Szeplaki (346.80) finished third and fourth respectively. Cornish posted a final 11-dive score of 311.50 and Barnes finished with a 289.15 score.