Hallie Roman dives at the Division 1 regional meet at Bloomfield Hills.
Diving might still be considered relatively new to Hallie Roman.
However, while the Port Huron Northern junior has just been diving for a little over two years, reaching the state finals is anything but new. For the second year in a row, Roman flipped and turned her way to the Division 1 state finals after placing fourth out of 46 divers in last week’s regional meet.
While Roman is pumped to be back in this weekend’s state meet after an 11-dive score of 364.85 at regionals, she is still looking at her area for growth.
“I thought I did pretty well but there’s always room for improvement,” Roman said.
For her success on the diving board last week, Roman is the Times Herald Athlete of the Week.
Roman won’t be the only Blue Water Area diver to be jumping off the board next week either. While Roman will be at the Division 1 meet at Oakland University, the Division 3 meet will have Marine City’s Rose Ostrowski, St. Clair’s Laikyn Kulman and Marysville’s Keri Ryan diving into Holland Aquatic Center’s pool.
Roman returns to the state finals with crucial experience from last year’s meet, and combining that with another year of honing her craft could set her up for a big weekend.
“I think this year I was overall more consistent this year than in the past,” she said. “I feel like I’ve grown a lot in every category.”
Not only will last year’s meet have her a little more comfortable this year, but a home pool feeling will also help as well. Roman practices at Oakland University’s pool three times a week, making this as close to a home meet as it could be.
“I think it’s definitely an advantage because we are used to how the board works so we don’t have to use practice time on that,” Roman said. “But I still need to treat it just as I would any other meet.”
Contact Matt Sheehan at (810)-989-6267 or msheehan@gannett.com.
Port Huron Northern’s Hallie Roman practices before the diving portion at the St. Clair County girls swim meet on Sept. 29, 2016.
