Capistrano Valley Freshman Wins Diving Title

IRVINE — Capistrano Valley freshman Erica Sorgi, near perfect on the one- and three-meter diving boards Wednesday, not only won her first Southern Section Division I diving title but set a record in the process.

Sorgi, a nationally ranked diver, performed every dive with precision as she finished with 568.10 points to break the 13-year-old record of 554.50 set by Laguna Beach diver Wendy Wyland.

With each of her 12 dives, Sorgi repeatedly scored sevens, eights and nines during Wednesday’s competition at the Heritage Aquatic Center.

As one of the nation’s top divers, Sorgi, who trains with the Mission Viejo Nadadores, has competed around the world. So it would be understandable that Wednesday’s meet might be boring for her.

“No, no, it’s not boring. This is really fun,” said Sorgi after she completed her last dive, a back 1 1/2 somersault 2 1/2 twist, free. “It’s a lot more relaxing than nationals or something like that. There’s no pressure, so you can have fun with your dives.”

Sorgi’s most difficult dive was a back, 2 1/2 somersault pike. On that dive, she received an overall score of 8.0.

With Sorgi leading in scoring for most of the day, the competition turned into a battle for second place. Junior Kellie Brennan of Edison held off sophomore Kristen Marquis of Santa Margarita. Brennan finished with 535.15. Marquis was third with 516.25.

Orange County dominated the girls’ diving as 11 of the top 12 finishers were from the county. Michelle Brown of Dana Hills finished fifth (463.65) and Delilah Moore of Capistrano Valley was sixth (418.85).

In the boys’ competition, junior Troy Dumais had little trouble fending off the competition as the Ventura Buena senior accumulated 701.65 points to win and also set a Division I record.

Dumais’ score broke his brother Justin’s 1996 score of 692.15. Justin, the defending Division I champion, was unable to compete in Wednesday’s meet because he was in Mexico for another diving competition.

“This meet certainly isn’t a cakewalk,” said Troy Dumais, who led throughout the competition. “Since I’ve never won at CIF, it was important to me to win this.”

Daniel Kozak, a junior from Mission Viejo, scored 556.10 points to take second. Brice Dumais, who’s the youngest of the Dumais brothers, finished third with 540.25.

Kozak, a native of Poland who also dives for the Polish National team, was able to pass Brice Dumais in the last round of competition after scoring some eights and nines on his last two dives.

Raymond Vincent of El Toro finished fourth (494.90) and Adrian Samples of Capistrano Valley fifth (447.45).

Other county divers who finished in the top 10 included Rob Koepke of Irvine (191.85) and Michael Tocco of Esperanza (180.15).