Since she was 4 years old, junior Alexa Rybicki has been practicing and perfecting her front flips. After spending 12 years as a competitive gymnast, Rybicki wanted to continue her gymnastics career in high school. Since Mercy does not have a gymnastics team, Rybicki took up the next best sport: diving.

From the very beginning, her talent was apparent. As an underclassman, Rybicki represented Mercy at the 2015 Michigan High School Athletic Association (MHSAA) Division I State Championships. She placed in the top 16 at the Championship meet, helping Mercy claim a third place finish.

After the high school diving season ended, Rybicki continued to excel in her newfound sport. This past summer, she found herself competing at the Amateur Athletic Union Diving National Championship.

“I wasn’t even nervous while competing because there was nothing else for me to qualify for beyond nationals,” she said, laughing. “I stayed calm and tried to enjoy myself and have fun with the other divers competing.”

To make it to nationals, a diver must obtain a certain score over the competing time period. There are six types of dives to perform, and scoring is based upon the judge’s scores and the difficulty of the dive. The degree of difficulty is multiplied by the sum of the scores of the three judges, who evaluate divers on a zero to 10 scale. To get to nationals, a diver must first qualify for regionals and place in the top 15 to qualify for zones. The top 10 divers at zones advance to nationals.

“Nationals was an amazing experience for my diving career,” Rybicki said.

She hopes to continue her diving career at the collegiate level at a Division I school. Her target schools include University of Michigan, Northwestern University, and Notre Dame University.

For now, Rybicki is putting her focus into the upcoming 2016 MHSAA Swimming and Diving Championships. With less than three weeks to go, Rybicki is still practicing hard and more ready than ever to claim a title as one of the top divers in the state.