SOUTHERN SECTION 4-A DIVING CHAMPIONSHIPS : Burkholder, Smith Lead South Coast League Sweep

IRVINE — The official title was the Southern Section/Reebok Division 4-A Diving Championships.

A better name would have been the South Coast League Invitational.

Divers from South Coast League schools took the top six places in the girls’ competition and the top five in the boys’ final at the Heritage Park Aquatics Complex in Irvine Wednesday.

Joy Burkholder of Capistrano Valley successfully defended her 4-A championship, edging Cougar teammate Summer Brown, 429.20-424.15. Darcy Stuart completed Capistrano Valley’s 1-2-3 sweep with a third place total of 410.90.

“I honestly didn’t expect to win,” Burkholder said. “When we finished, I thought Darcy or Summer was going to win. I was totally surprised.”

Burkholder needed a strong effort on her final dive to defend her title. After losing ground to Brown in the next-to-last round, Burkholder finished with a solid forward double somersault from the tuck position and received marks averaging seven from the five judges.

“I hit the forward doubles pretty good all day, so I was glad I had that dive to finish,” said Burkholder, who will dive for the University of Michigan next year. “I wasn’t really nervous because I’ve been through this before, but with all these freshmen and sophomores out here, I do kind of feel like the old lady of diving in CIF.”

Mission Viejo’s Arika Earley finished fourth (408.85), followed by Shannon Brown of Capistrano Valley (398.75) and El Toro’s Amy Sloan (396.40).

In the boys’ competition, Nate Smith of Dana Hills also finished with high marks to win the title. Smith finished with 516.90 points, ahead of El Toro’s Tyce Routson (507.35), after receiving scores of 7, 6.5 and 6.5 on his final dive--a difficult three-meter back 1 1/2 somersault with 2 1/2 twists--to clinch the victory.

“I lost a little ground on the dive before, but I was confident on the last dive because I know I can depend on it,” said Smith, who finished second in last year’s finals. “It’s not necessarily my favorite dive, but I know I can score with it.”

Routson, last year’s third-place finisher, put pressure on Smith with consecutive good dives in the final two rounds. Routson scored 7s with an inward 2 1/2 somersault and then finished with 6s on the same dive Smith concluded with.

“I knew I needed good marks on the last dive,” Smith said. “I was a little inconsistent all day, but I felt like I could win with a good last dive because I’d been doing more high (in degree of difficulty) dives than most of the guys.”

Mission Viejo’s Jason Hubbart (463.30) was third, followed by Jason David of Capistrano Valley (362.50) and Zack Williams of Irvine (360.60). Marina’s Ernie Higbee broke up the South Coast League domination with a sixth place finish (356.15).