PLAYOFF PROFILES : Cassady Isn’t Too Splashy

Sara Cassady, a senior at Cal State Northridge, is one of the best college divers in Southern California.

But she doesn’t have a special dive, one that she saves for her grand finale that sends the fans into a frenzy.

She doesn’t have any superstitions, other than eating Cheerios on the day of a meet.

She doesn’t have hobbies, just class and practice, class and practice.

Actually, Cassady is pretty boring.

Which is quite consistent with her also being the Matadors’ best hope to make the NCAA championships.

Diving is not a sport that rewards flashes of brilliance. One superb dive followed by one mediocre one will have you running your finger past a lot of names in the standings before you find your own.

The idea is to be as close to flawless as possible on the simplest or most complicated dive. Near perfection. Over and over.

“The thing about Sara is her consistency,” said Roland King, Northridge diving coach. “There’s not one thing that’s outstanding about her, but she doesn’t have a weakness.”

Cassady and her Northridge teammates will begin diving today in the Pacific Collegiate Swimming Conference championships in Cerritos. The women’s one-meter springboard competition will be today and the three-meter will be Friday.

The big prize--making the NCAAs--doesn’t depend on how Cassady does at the conference meet because she already has met the qualifying score for the Zone E meet March 15-16 in Portland, Ore.

Zone E includes nine western states. Only the top five divers will advance to the NCAA finals.

“If she has a good postseason, I expect her to be in the running for the national championships,” King said.

While growing up in Santa Cruz, Cassady dived for the Soquel High team. She finished in the top 10 in the Central Coast Section championships every year, but never won.

Cassady was recruited by exactly one college, Northridge, where at first she was a good diver buried under a lot of bad habits.

“She was slow and sloppy, but I could see a lot of potential,” King said.

In high school Cassady worked off the one-meter board only. When she arrived at college, she wanted to head right up to the three-meter board and try for a complicated dive: the back two-and-a-half.

The first time Cassady tried it, she splashed into the water flat on her back, injuring her shoulder. To overcome her fear of the dive, she kept trying it. Almost to the point of obsession.

“I really, really wanted to do it,” she said.

In fact, Cassady and King engaged in a shouting match her freshman year over the dive. Cassady wanted to keep working the two-and-a-half, while King wanted her to work on something easier, a back one-and-a-half.

By her sophomore year, she had learned both. That was the season Cassady progressed the most. It took her a year to adjust to a surprisingly hectic college diving schedule--which includes conditioning, gymnastics and film study in addition to simply diving.

She finished third in the one-meter and second in the three-meter at the PCSC meet and qualified for the Zone E meet her sophomore year. Cassady was ninth in the three-meter and 15th in the one-meter at the Zone E meet.

Last year at the conference meet, Cassady had two more top 10 finishes--second in the one-meter and sixth in the three-meter--and returned to the Zone E, where she placed 12th and 18th in the one- and three-meter, respectively.

This year, Cassady has put together all she has learned. She has posted a Zone E qualifying score in all 12 meets in which she competed. Cassady also beat many divers who had defeated her last year.

“She has not had a month in four years that she has not gotten better,” King said.

Cassady attributes much of her improvement to King, who has coached more than 50 divers who have gone on to national or international competition.

“It’s just a lot of practice and hard work,” she said. “This is the fourth year of very intensive workouts.

“I just learned at meets this year to stop worrying about what I am going to do next. Just concentrate on what I know how to do and do it.”

Sounds plain and simple enough.

The good ones always make it look that way, too.