GREENSBORO, N.C. (AP) — Teenagers Jessica Parratto and Steele Johnson won their second titles in two days Sunday during the final day of the U.S. national diving championships.
Parratto, the 18-year-old Indianapolis diver who won the women’s 10-meter platform Saturday, teamed with 17-year-old Anna James of Midland, Texas, to win the women’s synchronized 10-meter platform for the first time.
”I’m totally surprised to have won twice this week,” said Parratto, who finished second in the event twice, last year with James and in 2009 with Sarah Bacon. ”But it’s all worth it because we’ve trained really, really hard and sacrificed some things. This makes it all worth it.”
The 16-year-old Johnson, the men’s synchronized 10-meter platform title winner Saturday, added his first men’s 10-meter platform championship Sunday in a runaway. He posted four dives of 80 points or better, including a final-round best of 99.00 on a back 3 1/2 somersault tuck.
”I was just going into my dives not knowing what was going to happen,” said Johnson, from Carmel, Ind. ”I was praying all of my dives would go vertical, and not smack any of them. I was blessed, because all of them went exactly like I hoped.”
Parratto and James took the women’s synchronized 10-meter platform title with a score of 311.16 points. Sydney Couch of Indianapolis and Lacey Houser of Danville, Ind., were second at 277.59; and Cheyenne Cousineau of Temperance, Mich., and Samantha Bromberg of Bexley, Ohio, finished third at 275.31.
”I was a lot more confident going into synchro because we’ve worked really, really hard for it,” James said. ”We’ve got our dives down, and were really getting into it.”
Johnson, who also won the boys’ 10-meter platform last week in the U.S. junior nationals, finished the men’s 10-meter platform with a total score of 497.80. Zachary Cooper, 14, of Franklin, Ind., was second at 426.65; and Toby Stanley of Conway, Ark., finished third at 404.45.
Other winners Sunday were Justin Dumais and Dwight Dumais in the men’s synchronized 3-meter springboard, and 16-year-old Gracia Leydon-Mahoney in the women’s 3-meter springboard.
Justin Dumais, of Orlando, Fla., and his younger brother, Dwight Dumais, of Austin, Texas, won the men’s synchronized 3-meter platform title by less than two points over Bryce Klein and Bradley Christensen, both of Southlake, Texas, 419.55-417.60.
It was the second U.S. national title in the event for Justin Dumais, who also won in 2005 with younger brother Troy Dumais, the bronze medalist in the same event at the 2012 London Olympics.
Samuel Dorman of Tempe, Ariz., and Zachary Nees of Hatfield, Pa., finished third at 413.76.
Leyton-Mahoney, of Durham, N.C., won her first women’s 3-meter springboard title, beating Gabriella Agostino of South Bend, Ind., 346.95-308.15.
Laura Ryan of Elk River, Minn., who teamed with Meghan Houston of Austin, Texas, to win the women’s synchronized 3-meter springboard title Saturday, finished third at 296.95.
