When Jessica Roby, girls diving head coach, arrived for the first day of the season in August, she was uncertain about who would come to practice.

     According to Roby, the team had only two divers in 2015, which was the fewest in 25 years. Roby was not expecting any upperclassmen to join.

    Contrary to her expectations, juniors Caroline Blankfield and Shayna Ungerleider decided to join the team. Both are two-year Glenbrook North gymnasts, and Blankfield placed second all-around in the 2016 conference gymnastics meet.

    “That was a very pleasant surprise, and the fact that they were gymnasts surprised me too,” Roby said.

     Blankfield and Ungerleider said they had no previous diving experience. Ungerleider also said she had never even been on a diving board before.

     While talking about the first practice, Roby could not help but laugh. She said there were a lot of flailing arms, in addition to many under- and over-rotations when the divers attempted their first dives.

     Blankfield described the first practice in two words: “very painful.”

     Ungerleider also said the first few practices were difficult.

     “I tend to over-rotate things a lot, so when I was first learning flips and things, I tended to land on my stomach a lot,” said Ungerleider. “When we’re diving, there’s a video recording on the side, so we can watch it after, and after somebody would flop, we’d all just sit there and watch it on replay. … It’s bad, but it’s really entertaining to watch.”

     Blankfield said learning to land on her head instead of her feet was difficult because everything was backwards. To get past this struggle, she tried to continue diving without fear.

     Ungerleider said it was important to move on from the failed dives at the beginning of the year.

     “I kind of just forget about everything I was thinking about during [those dives], and it helps me because I know whatever I was thinking about messed me up,” Ungerleider said.

     Roby said she still saw a lot of potential in Blankfield and Ungerleider despite a difficult first week of practice. She saw this potential because of their great body control and feel in the air and because they were less afraid to try new dives due to their comfort in the air.

     Blankfield said her skills in gymnastics allowed diving to come more naturally for her than it does for most beginners.

     “[My gymnastics background] is helpful because I kind of know how to flip and then feel where I am in the air,” Blankfield said.

     According to Roby, it is common for gymnasts to transition to diving.

     “Here at Glenbrook North, we typically have gymnasts who dive,” said Roby. “We’ve had kind of a dry spell in the last four years, but it’s pretty common. The flipping is the same. The twisting is almost the same. It’s just learning how to land on your head instead of your feet [that] is challenging.”

     Julie Holmbeck, girls gymnastics head coach, said Blankfield’s experience in gymnastics will help her with diving.

     “She has muscular control as far as when to take off, timing, rhythm, being able to rotate [and] point her toes, so the gymnastics techniques will all help her [because] they kind of coincide with diving,” Holmbeck said.

     Roby said key skills that transfer from gymnastics to diving include the abilities to switch from position to position in mid-air and maintain balance in order to control one’s body.

     Blankfield and Ungerleider, who both said they started gymnastics when they were five years old, have used these skills to improve over the course of the season.

     “I’m a quick learner,” Blankfield said.

     Ungerleider said she was very proud when she gained the ability to do all five types, or “families,” of dives that divers are required to do in competition. The types of dives are forward, backward, reverse, inward and twisting. Once Ungerleider was able to do all of these dives, she moved on to more advanced dives with higher degrees of difficulty, which gave her the potential to earn higher scores on her dives.

     Roby said she estimates her divers’ scores have been improving in about 90 percent of meets.

     From the team’s first meet against Stevenson on Sept. 6 to their meet against Highland Park on Oct. 14, Blankfield improved from a score of 151.8 to a score of 182.05, and Ungerleider improved from a 119.9 to 146.3.

     Roby said she is very happy with the improvements of Blankfield, Ungerleider and the rest of the team.

     “They’re really starting to control their jumps and starting to control their entries, so it’s a completely different look at practice right now than it was the first two weeks,” Roby said.