Written by Trey Meier, Staff Writer
After just missing state in the one meter dive her freshman year, coming in seventh place at sectionals, Joanne Banaszak followed it up with an even better finish this year, comfortably punching a ticket to state with a second place score of 383.15.
Her impressive score was almost 30 points ahead of the next diver. At the state meet in the UW Natatorium, Banaszak managed to make her way past the preliminary and seminal rounds to qualify for the finals. A score of 357.9 placed her at 15th in Wisconsin, and 6th in the state among sophomores.
Banaszak started diving in her freshman year and found her talent as the year went on.
“I got into it because I did gymnastics for eight years before that,” she said. “So I thought I should try it because diving and gymnastics are pretty similar.”
For Banaszak, it was hard work and dedication that pushed her over the top into the pool of elite divers in the state.
“From freshman to sophomore year, I improved on my dives a lot, and brought up the difficulty of my dives,” she said. “I also got over some mental blocks, which I needed to do in order to be competitive at big meets.
Over the season, I worked very hard and tried to focus on the little details of my dives. A lot of the time I’d be the last person to leave practice because I wanted to perfect my dives,” Banaszak said.
Those improvements showed out in one of the biggest meets of the year at sectionals, where Banaszak qualified for state.
“When I made it to state I was so happy because I had been working towards that for so long. I was also so relieved because I wanted to make it so badly,” she said.
Banaszak’s performance at state this year far exceeded IT Swim Coach Janine Paskiewicz’s expectations.
“Joanne always maintains her composure and is even tempered, however, beneath all of that is a fierce competitor. She has very high expectations for herself and works very hard to achieve them,” Paskiewicz said.