Katie Madigan

ERIE — It didn’t take Katie Madigan long to get the hang of things in the sport of diving. A year after the former gymnast took up the sport, she won her first District 10 2A diving championship.

An emergency appendectomy limited her practice time this season, but she caught up pretty quickly. On Saturday, she won her second straight D10 championship at McDowell Intermediate High School.

“I was worried I wouldn’t have enough time to prepare, but that wasn’t the case,” said Madigan.

The Warren senior wasn’t satisfied with her last of 11 dives, but it was enough to overcome Harbor Creek senior Reagan Rand, the D10 champ in 2020 as a sophomore.

On Saturday, Rand was one spot ahead of Madigan in the rotation, but Madigan would retake the lead with each dive leading to the final round. Rand finished with 471.80 points before Madigan pushed ahead for a repeat title with 487.80.

“This year was great,” said Madigan. “I felt more prepared and managed my nerves a lot better this year. Today, the goal was to defend the D10 title, and going on to states I just want to do my best and perform better than last year. A lot of hard work, every practice counted more then ever.”

Madigan won in a field of 15 divers, including three who have advanced to states previously.

“Katie entered the last two meets with a lot of momentum — setting a new pool record at Brookville, breaking both of her own school records for Warren, and breaking the 300-point mark,” said her father and Warren diving coach Matt Madigan. “She won the invitational last Saturday, missing the McDowell pool record by only one point.

“Katie’s confidence going into these last two meets was pretty high,” he said. “She set a lot of goals for herself to start this season and now, with another D10 title under her belt, she has accomplished all but one of these goals. Her final goal is to finish higher than she did last year at states.”

Katie finished fourth at the PIAA 2A meet last season as a junior.

“Athletically, most of Katie’s dives are looking really good,” said Coach Madigan. “She put up a lot of 9s and even a 9-1/2 in today’s competition. But there’s always room for improvement. Katie added a few new dives with higher (degrees of difficulty) to her list in the last couple weeks. She hasn’t had a lot of time to practice these dives due to our heavy competition schedule toward the end of this season. We’re looking forward to really buckling down over the next couple weeks and perfecting these new dives for states.”