How Seneca Valley’s Ali Waters flipped her way from gymnast to WPIAL diving championship contender
Plunging off a diving board reminds Ali Waters of a life in the not-too-distant past.
The Seneca Valley junior has only been diving for a year and a half, yet she finished sixth at last year’s WPIAL Class 3A championship meet and recently broke the Raiders’ girls varsity and pool record. She’s also got the third best score entering this year’s WPIAL championships.
Waters was originally a gymnast.
“It gives me a similar thrill,” said Waters of the sport she’s now excelling in. “It kind of makes me feel like I’m on top of the world.”
Flipping and twirling into the pool is much less taxing than her previous sport was.
“I found out that, after doing diving, my body doesn’t really ache as much,” Waters said. “Because, in gymnastics, I would always come home with soreness. ... Diving is so much easier on my body, so it makes a lot of things more fun, I would say, because I don’t have to worry about getting injured from hitting something.”
“The floor is really hard,” Seneca Valley diving coach Nancy Laslavic said with a laugh.
Waters started gymnastics at 3 years old, taking part in “a lot of mommy and me classes with my mom and a bunch of little classes.” Through 11 years on the mat, Waters progressed, spending around 20 hours per week perfecting her craft.
“Whenever I was younger, doing all of the tricks and getting the skills, I always remember feeling like I was kind of flying — which is crazy to say — but that was probably one of my favorite things,” Waters said.
Setting goals to knock down gave Waters a sense of self, but bumps and bruises put a damper on the fun. The competition season ate up over half the year, and Waters would compete twice a month from December through June.
“I was on kind of the Olympic track and on the way to recruiting and college, so it was really good,” Waters said.
But injuries began to add up. She missed parts of three years with broken bones in her feet and ankles — seven broken bones in total, she said.
“At that point, I just kind of felt like my body couldn’t really take it anymore,” Waters said.
She eventually broke the bottom of her fibula, spelling the end of her gymnastics career. She was in a cast and leaned on crutches for an extended period of time.
Having to sit out and watch was hard.
“I kind of was just, like, in a hole, and I couldn’t really do much,” Waters said, adding she was unable to go to states or regionals — which she’d qualified for — because of the injury.
Restless, Waters transitioned to diving a few months later. The skill she’d picked up twirling through the air in her first sport gave her a leg up in learning her new sport.
“When I first started, I was progressing in dives a lot — getting new dives and harder dives — because a lot of the skills in diving are really similar to gymnastics,” Waters said. “I have a really unique thing, it’s called air awareness and body awareness, and not a lot of people have that.
“It helps me to know where I am in the air and be able to spot and come out and (hit) the water kind of perfectly.”
“It seems to translate pretty well to diving,” Laslavic said of gymnastics. “We just have to, instead of going horizontal across the mat, we’ve got to start going up. ... The coaches with gymnastics are already telling you how to keep your legs straight and toes pointed and that sort of thing. That does (provide) a big-time advantage with going into diving.”
Against North Hills on Feb. 3, Waters’ six dives totaled 306.80, beating Ashley Felitsky’s Seneca Valley record of 294.20 set in 2022.
“She was really having a great night, and the judges were rewarding her,” Laslavic said.
“Whenever I put my name on that board, it felt crazy,” Waters said. “It was so surreal, but one of the best feelings I think I’ve ever had because I really achieved what my overall goal was.”
Waters is aiming to reach states with a top three performance in the WPIAL Class 3A Diving Championships at North Allegheny High School. She’ll be diving alongside classmate Cooper Burcham, who’s competing in districts for the third time.
Butler’s Grace Pesichini and Michelle Jacobson will be taking part, as well, along with Mars’ Mya Lee and Marin Raible.
There are no Butler County divers competing in the Class 2A championships Friday.
