Saturday’s District 11 Class 3A diving championship at Emmaus High School was competitive with 10 divers vying for the title. In addition to medals, the top two finishers receive invitations to the PIAA diving championship next month at Bucknell University. Parkland’s Brad Kunz finished second, beating eight other divers, including three teammates, to get the last of those two invitations. Freedom’s Cody Smith took the top spot and will also make the trip to Lewisburg.

Kunz, a senior, won the event last season with a score of 370.10 and Smith was second when he turned in a 368.55. Both divers vastly improved on their scores from a season ago, but this time it was Smith on top with a 470.10 and Kunz finishing second at 434.50.

Northampton’s Alex Szeplaki got off to a fast start to take the lead after the first two rounds with Emmaus’ Doug Cornish holding down second place just 0.50 points off Szeplaki’s pace. Smith was third and Kunz was fourth.

As often happens, early leads evaporated, and the standings reset a few times throughout the meet. Szeplaki struggled in round three and Smith was impressive on a back 1 ½ somersault, 1 ½ twist to leapfrog Cornish and take the top spot when he was awarded a 51.25 for the dive. Parkland’s Charlie Epstein moved into third with a 44.85 on a forward double somersault pike while Kunz fell to fifth.

Epstein remained in third through round five before moving up a notch in round six when he scored a 46.80 with an inward 1 ½ somersault pike. In that same round, Kunz started his move up the ladder when he moved to fourth.

The order remained unchanged until Kunz scored a 49.50 in round eight and knocked Epstein out of the top three and leapfrogged Cornish to move into second place. Smith got better as the event went on and Kunz was unable to catch him for the top spot but was able to keep Cornish from moving up to take second place.

“I’m happy. I put in all of the work that’s needed to do well in an event like this and I am ready to show off my senior year skills for the last year,” said Kunz, who finished 12th out of 24 divers last year at states. “I’m glad that I got the nerves out last year and I feel more comfortable going out there this year. I think it’s going to go well.”

Charlie Epstein finished in fifth while Parkland junior Ari Levin finished eighth and senior Harry Epstein finished ninth.

Smith and Kunz will dive at Bucknell on Saturday March 15 seeking medals in the state competition.

“I’ve got some stuff to work on in the next few weeks, but I know I’m going to be able to fine tune all of my dives and get ready to compete,” said Kunz. “I’m just going to do my normal practices but with less people practicing I will be able to get a lot more dives in and get more reps on the board. I’ll be ready when I head to Bucknell.”