In the sport of competitive diving the goal is to make the least splash possible, but within the local community the National and All-State ranked divers of the Carroll Varsity Dive Team will be making quite a big splash for years to come.
For most area high schools one instructor acts as both the swim team and dive team coach. However, the Southlake pools are patrolled in tandem by swim coach Kevin Murphy and dive coach Carolyn Hryorchuk- two separate coaches each providing their teams with specialized instruction.
Two years ago the Carroll Dragons dive team had an opening and Dragon Physical Education teacher Carolyn Hryorchuk stepped up into the role. 2006 marked the inaugural year for Hryorchuk’s dive coaching career after making her mark as a three time Virginia State Champion Gymnastics Coach for Chancellor Klein high school. According to her, “gymnastics and diving have a lot in common except in gymnastics the main goal is to land on your feet and not on your head like in diving!”
Due to the fact that diving is such a specialized and complicated sport competitive divers deserve a dedicated coach like Hryorchuk. Just because dives are performed alongside swimmers in a pool doesn’t necessarily mean that a swim coach is the best person for the job. Swim coaches often find themselves more involved in arm strokes and leg kicks within the pool itself while a dive coach is more concerned with airborne body movements made well before the body even enters the water. With all the twisting, flipping and somersaulting that divers perform it is easy to see how gymnastics coaches could be so well equipped to “dive in” to this sport.
In only her second season of varsity coaching, Hryorchuk is a relatively new diving coach, but she has over seven years worth of familiarity with the sport in addition to last year’s award for boys dive coach of the year. Like many suburban parents, she got into diving through the involvement of her daughter. Over the course of her daughters development Carolyn got more involved to the point where she was coaching divers at the local club level. As her daughter progressed through the ranks, so too did mom, right into high school coaching.
For Carolyn the recent dive coach opening was one that just needed to be filled. She says, “The kids just have too much talent” to be left without specialized attention. The most notable diver on the Southlake Carroll Dive team is- you guessed it the coach’s kid. Taylor Hryorchuk, 16 is a Junior and has been practicing since the age of 9. She now spearheads the largest high school dive team in the region as Southlake Carroll credits nine members to its roster. Taylor is currently rated as an All-American Diver, a designation reserved for the top 50 divers in the nation and she also competes for the USA’s Junior Olympic Dive Team.
With no Seniors but four very competitive Juniors- including Hryorchuk and All-State selection Connor Bowles, the Dragons Dive Team looks forward to continued success as they gain more competitive experience.
They definitely gained some valuable experience at the North Texas Interscholastic Swimming Coaches Association (TISCA) Invitational Swimming & Diving Meet this November 16th & 17th where more than 70 boys' and 70 girls' teams competed. The Lady Dragons swim/dive team took first place while the boy’s team took fourth place. For the ladies, it was the first time in Dragon history that they ever took home such honors at the North TISCA meet in addition to besting the current defending 5A State Champions in Austin Westlake.
Even more recently another historic first happened when the Carroll Swim and Dive team “pooled” their scores to outpace PlanoSenior High School for the first time ever by a score of 158-154. The meet was very close, but the Carroll Dive Team out scored Plano 23-3 by finishing first through fourth place consecutively. The amazing finish was paced by Taylor Hryorchuk’s 263 points and Connor Bowles 208 points. The inclusion of the dive points in swim/dive team competition allowed just enough cushion to bring home the win. According to Swim Coach Kevin Murphy, “our divers were the most significant difference in the outcome.”
This meet in addition to the rest of the regular season will not be a walk in the park for the Southlake’s divers. According to Coach Hryorchuk, “the district also includes Grapevine and Colleyville is the toughest district in the entire state.” Remarkable but true, thirteen national level divers currently reside within these three bordering cities. The competition is just as tough for the State Championships as only the two best girls and boys from each region move on to compete in State-wide competition.
This begs a simple question in, “How could so many National Level divers live in such a small area?” The answer is just as simple, Grapevine-Carroll Divers. Grapevine-Carroll or GC Divers is a springboard diving club based out of three local pools in Grapevine, Southlake and Keller. This local dive club was originally established by a former NCAA Champion and US National Champion Diver and Southlake resident Krista Kline in 1994.
In the early days, prior to the completion of Southlake’s aquatic center in 1999, the small club of about 5 GC Divers practiced solely out of the Grapevine location. Under the direction of Kline the club quickly built a national reputation for excellence. Combining national acclaim with limited facilities quickly led to an extensive wait list.
Today, the “wait” is over and GC Divers has a roster of nearly 100 children ranging from six year old “Mighty Mites” all the way to Junior Olympic and National Team divers like the aforementioned Hryorchuk. Many of these budding water-born athletes travel from across North Texas looking forward to the individual attention and world class coaching that are hallmarks of this local diving club.
Coach Kline herself has diving in her blood. She was raised in a family of six children hailing from successful diving parents Dick and Ida Wilson. Ida joined her daughter as a fellow GC Divers Coach and to this day continues to compete in the Masters Diving program where she has won 23 Masters National Championships over the last thirty or so years. Krista, and 3 of her siblings continued on in competitive diving and her brother Curt Wilson now coaches the very successful Crown Valley Diving club based in Southern California.
Coming from such a strong family background gave Kline the understanding that “a balanced approach to diving and life is most important.” Kline and GC Divers pride themselves in not asking too much from their pupils. Kline professes, “We want our kids to be kids first while growing to be well-rounded [young adults].” They help build this culture by providing much appreciated flexibility for young children who quite often are involved in several competitive extra-curricular activities. Kline says, “We do our best to work scheduling conflicts around seasonal sports whenever possible so that our divers miss as few practices as possible.”
For Coach Kline, not asking her students to specialize in diving too early helps them “stay in diving for the long haul by not getting burnt out” before they ever even reach their prime. It was this mind-set that helped her in her own stellar career as her level of focus and attention peaked with her maturity where many other experienced college divers began to falter under the stresses of their countless years of preparation.
The two local dive coaches do have a very good friendship to which they have added a healthy dose of mutual respect. Kline says of her colleague, “I admire Carolyn’s interest in learning about diving, she is not afraid to ask for help. This makes me feel very comfortable sending kids into high school diving.” Because of their teamwork both club level and Southlake’s high-school diving have consistent and successful models of preparation comprised of both land-based gymnastics and fitness training in addition to actual pool-based dives. Kline admits, “Carolyn [Hryorchuk] is doing a perfect job with the team, every year she gains more experience and confidence.” Coach Hryorchuk adds, “Krista has helped me out tremendously and know I feel very confident.” Both are very happy that more club kids will continue to dive for a highly competitive Southlake Dive team.
Like their coaches, many of the young divers have created lasting friendships through their joint experiences at the club level. Diving, unlike other high school sports has an interesting twist where competitors from rival schools are often the closest of friends who competed together at a club meet just a few days prior. Friendships endure head-to-head competition and time and again result in cheers for well executed dives regardless of the school the diver hails from.
Coach Kline is thrilled to work in close proximity to Coach Hryorchuk and the Southlake Carroll Dive Team. Currently eight of the nine members of the school’s Varsity dive roster are committed to two to three days of additional practice each week with the GC Divers. This is in addition to the school’s daily practice sessions overseen by Coach Hryorchuk. What’s even better is the fact that several more sub-varsity divers continue to keep busy in the club pools just awaiting their chance to shine on the high school boards. It seems evident that another “Dragon Tradition” is underway!