Since 2013, RB has not had a female diving team. This year, juniors Abby Regan and Nicky O’Keefe and have set out to change that.

With no diving experience between either of them, Regan and O’Keefe decided to resurrect the late diving team to score more points for swimming and diving invitationals.

“My mom was a diver when she was in high school, she was also on the swim team. She’s been pushing me to do it for a while, but then I decided, maybe I should try it,” said Regan.

The divers have been practicing after school with the Oak Park River Forest High School diving team, coached by three-time diving state qualifier and OPRF teacher Mark Pappalardo.

“Its really fun because he’s been teaching diving for a while and he dove in high school, so it’s really cool to get input from him,” said Regan. “Plus, the girls from OPRF are really nice, so it’s good to have support from them.”

Originally, the girls were not allowed to dive at meets. A diver must have a certain amount of dives they can perform before being invited to the meets.

“I did 8 practices in total, but you need 6 dives for duel meets,” said Regan. “It depends on how many dives [are required] for the invite.”

On September 16, the dive team was able to compete for the first time at the RB invite. Regan scored a 117, finishing fourth, and O’Keefe scored a 98, finishing fifth.