Fox Chapel’s Cagley among favorites to claim WPIAL diving gold

By: HSSN Staff
Thursday, February 22, 2018 | 11:21 PM

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When the Fox Chapel and Franklin Regional swimming and diving teams met for section competition Feb. 8, spectators were treated to a mini WPIAL preview.

Three of the top divers in boys Class AAA went head-to-head.

Fox Chapel junior Jonah Cagley, the defending WPIAL champion, finished first with a score of 376.30.

Franklin Regional junior Mason Fishell placed second with a 345.40, and Foxes freshman David Manelis placed third at 335.95.

Cagley and Fishell each recorded 10s during the six-dive meet.

“The energy at that meet was crazy,” said Cagley, who will look to defend his WPIAL title Saturday morning at North Allegheny. “David would do an amazing dive, and then Mason would do an amazing dive. I knew I had to step it up. We were all just competing with each other and pushing each other to do better dives.”

All six WPIAL boys divers who qualified for the state meet last year in Class AAA return and will be challenged by an additional crop of competitors hoping to find their place in the PIAA field at Bucknell.

Saturday's Class AAA championships begin with the boys 11-dive meet at 10 a.m. followed by the girls competition at 2:30 p.m.

Class AA kicks everything off Friday with the boys meet at 11 a.m. and the girls at 3.

The top six Class AA girls and boys and the top five Class AAA girls and boys automatically advance to states.

Cagley, runner-up as a freshman in 2016, was the lone Class AAA boys diver at WPIALs last year to eclipse 500 points. His 525.20 was 30 points clear of runner-up Owen Johns, a junior from Mt. Lebanon.

Cagley went on to take bronze at the PIAA meet. He was in the lead until the last dive.

“Jonah has that motivation to get back to states and win it all,” Fox Chapel diving coach Vernon Yenick said. “He wants the state record, too. He is really good under pressure, and he experienced that last year. He knows that there are a number of others who want to be where he is.”

The Class AAA boys state record is a 599.50 recorded in 2011 by North Allegheny grad Connor Kuremsky.

As far as WPIAL records go, the 11-dive record is a 610.00 posted by Pine-Richland grad and former Pitt standout Dominic Giordano in 2013.

“That's something that's in the back of my mind,” Cagley said. “It's something all of the top divers want to shoot for. That's an amazing score. But I am not shooting for a particular score. I hope to score as high as I can, but I just want to go in and do my best dives and see where that puts me. ”

Fox Chapel had five divers qualify but only four can compete.

It initially created a dilemma for Yenick. Who would be the one boys diver to not compete at WPIALs?

That question was answered when freshman Aidan Ireland volunteered to step aside.

“Aidan approached me and was very understanding of the situation,” Yenick said. “Aidan has a lot of potential at WPIALs, and he will have three more years to do great things. He is very strong and athletic and a pretty hard worker.”

Manelis, who will compete at the World Junior Olympic Trials in May, finished with the fourth-best score for Class AAA boys in the regular season.

Foxes junior Magnus Loeffler returns to WPIALs after placing ninth last year and 12th as a freshman, while sophomore teammate Nate Sercov hopes to improve on his 11th-place finish.

On the girls side, Foxes junior Kate Eames hopes to improve on her 24th-place finish in 2017, her first WPIAL appearance.

Also representing the A-K Valley in the girls competition Saturday is Kiski Area senior Paige Bachner, who placed 16th as a freshman.

There will be a new girls champion in Class AAA as Mars' Taylor Hockenberry graduated and now is at North Carolina.

Seniors Taylor Miller (Latrobe) and Adrienne White (Hampton) lead the Class AAA girls qualifiers. White finished second last year, while Miller took third.

Michael Love is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at mlove@tribweb.com or via Twitter @Mlove_Trib.

Tags: Fox Chapel