There may be a Sports Illustrated cover jinx, but there is no Plymouth Magazine curse. Just ask the seniors on the Plymouth State women’s diving team. (Summer 2003)
The trio went on to enjoy a terrific senior season. Krit Kearins, Becky Huntington and Jenna Crescenzi all established school records during the season as PSU dominated opponents throughout the winter.
Kearins used her exceptional athletic ability to set several PSU standards and capture her second straight New England championship on the one-meter board. Huntington relied on her determination and spinning and twisting talent to earn victories and set records on the three-meter board. And it was Crescenzi’s victory on the three-meter in the final meet of the regular season, and her school record in the preliminary round at the New England Championship Meet, that set the stage for a grand finale to their collegiate careers.
“They had an excellent senior season,” says PSU coach Al Switzer, who earned his second straight New England Diving Coach of the Year award, “due in good part to the upbeat character of the group. They continued to support each other and kept anybody from getting down on themselves. … The thing that impressed me most about them is that they were such tough competitors, and had such determination. Regardless of what they’d done in practice, when they got to the meet they put it all together.”
As an example, Switzer tells how after the preliminaries at the New Englands, when everyone else had left the pool, showered and gone to dinner or back to the hotel, Huntington went back out to an empty pool to practice a dive she had missed. She wanted to get it right for the finals.
“They constantly challenged themselves to do a better job,” says Switzer. “They never gave up. They had good goals, they wanted to go out as winners, and they worked hard to achieve that.”
—KC
