Senior diver Nina Mayers competed in the diving state meet on Wednesday, Feb. 21, making Mayers the first female diver from Beachwood to compete in states since Amanda Leizman in 2020.

Mayers has been diving on and off since she was in first grade. She had been a gymnast prior to diving.

“It was mostly fun at first,” Mayers said. “Then I decided … later that I wanted to do it again for high school and do it more seriously.”

In the offseason she practices with the Northeast Ohio Diving Club and competes in a few offseason meets to get prepared for the school season.

Mayer’s offseason practices are less intense than during the season. She practices three to four times a week for two hours each during the offseason, but during the season she practices six times a week for two hours each. The off-season practice helped her stay in shape and keep her diving form for the school season.

Throughout Mayer’s high school career, her improvement on the board has been significant. She feels that much of her improvement has depended on her mindset.

“It’s a very mental sport,” Mayers said. “You could be the best athlete and have the strongest jumps and greatest form, but if you get into a meet, and let yourself get nervous or overthink, you start messing up very simple things.”

“I don’t think that was a skill that I had in my freshman and sophomore years, and it was something I really only developed recently,” she said. “That’s been the biggest improvement that I’ve seen in myself since the start of high school.”

This year Mayers worked on improving her current dives while also adding two new dives, a twister and an inward one and a half.

She hit her head on the board doing the inward one and a half just a few days before CVCs. Fortunately, she was not concussed and was still able to compete and perform well. 

Mayers finished in eighth place at the district championship meet, sending her to the state championship meet. Standing on the podium with her medal, Mayers felt she had accomplished her goal.

“[It] was maybe the best feeling ever,” she said. “My sophomore and junior years, I got to the district meet, and I didn’t perform to the ability I knew I could.”

But senior year was different. 

“I think just standing there, knowing that I had accomplished my goal, I proved to myself and everyone else that I can do it and worked so hard for it,” she said.

It’s not just about winning, though.

“My coach doesn’t frame it as a competition,” she added. “He says you go out there and do a performance; It’s no different than doing a dance.”

Going into the state meet, Mayers’ knew her dives didn’t have a high enough difficulty to place on the podium.

“One of the big parts of diving is not only diving really well and having form and scoring, but it’s also having harder dives; scores are multiplied by a degree of difficulty that is assigned to each dive,” she said. “My goal was to not get dead last, and luckily, I didn’t.”

Mayers finished 30th in the state, which is a huge accomplishment for her individually and for Beachwood.