High school diving: Avon's Ryan Flaherty doesn't let broken foot shatter his dream

It's been a wild four to six weeks weeks for Avon senior Ryan Flaherty, but he made it through some tough times to qualify to today's Division I state diving meet at Canton McKinley's Branin Natatorium. Flaherty rallied to grab the seventh of eight state qualifying positions at last week's district meet at Bowling Green with a score of 368.20. His bigger battle, however, was just getting to the district meet. Flaherty broke his left foot when he struck the bottom of the pool while making his final dive in a dual meet Jan. 10 against Berea-Midpark at Middleburg Heights Junior High. "I entered the water feet first and hit the bottom of the pool and I just felt my foot like fold underneath," Flaherty said. "Initially it didn't hurt too bad because of all the adrenaline, but then that started wearing off and it hurt pretty badly." Flaherty was devastated. He thought his last year of high school diving was over. "I suffered a concussion diving my sophomore year at practice and had to miss a month," he said. "It was just the way my head hit the water. ... That was bad, but my foot injury was worse because it's my senior year with conference and districts right around the corner." Flaherty tried to stay positive but the clock was running out on his chance to finally make it to state. He had missed a state berth by two places each of the last two years, taking eighth as a junior when six qualified, and finishing seventh as a sophomore when five qualified. He was 14th at districts freshman year, but wasn't in serious contention for a qualifying spot (top six). "I tried to do what I could with weight training and doing crunches just to keep myself in shape," Flaherty said. He was medically cleared Feb. 2 to start diving, but then he got and was out from Feb. 3-8. He finally got back to the pool in time for the last three practices at Lakewood High prior to districts. The practices weren't all pretty, but it was just enough to get Flaherty ready for districts. "I just wanted to see if I could handle jumping," he said. "It was just to get the dives back, not even make them look right. February 9th I only was able to do basic jumps to get used to hurdling again. February 10th and 13th were the days I was able to start practicing actual dives." Flaherty was in ninth place through eight of 11 dives at the district meet, one spot out of qualifying. Then he did what he had to do and completed his comeback — in more ways than one. "I looked up at my mom and dad in the stands (before the final dive)," he said of. "I could see my mom crying. That almost like made me cry, but I kept it all together." Contact Paul Heyse at (440) 329-7135 or ctsports@chroniclet.com.