INDIANAPOLIS — Saturday’s IHSAA Girls Swimming and Diving State Finals at the IUPUI Natatorium did not go as planned for Greenfield-Central diver Shyanne Milne, but that does not mean she has to see the experience as a defeat.
Though she did not advance out of preliminaries and finished 31st out of 32 competitors, her coach, Duane Knecht, said the sophomore learned a lot in her first state expedition.
“That was just her first shot,” Knecht said. “What I told her was that it beats being a junior or a senior and doing that. … I couldn’t stress to her enough that she is only a sophomore, while most of the girls there were older. She’ll have another chance. She has a lot to look forward to.”
Milne was just one of nine underclassmen to have made it to the state finals, a fact Knecht said she can be proud of.
Of course, he does not want Milne to forget the frustration she felt Saturday.
Knecht said he will be making a copy of Milne’s diving sheet so she will have a record of her scores and the disappointment she experienced.
“I want her to use it as motivation,” he said. “Because six or nine months from now, you might look back and think, ‘That wasn’t a big deal,’ but when those scores are sitting in front of you, it makes you remember. It makes it real. I hope she hangs them on her bedroom wall.”
Milne scored 126.7 points in her first five dives, about 40 points shy of qualifying for the semifinals.
Hamilton Heights’ Brooke Schultz scored a new state record 563.65 points in 11 dives to win the title.
