EMMAUS - Tamaqua divers Emma Rago and Thorn Devlin knew they would be facing some stiff competition coming into the District 11 Diving Championships held this past Saturday at Emmaus High School, but they both left feeling like they gave a fair representation of themselves.

Rago was up against returning District 11 Champion Nicole Sagl of Allentown Central Catholic High School and returning runner-up Erin Donnelly of Southern Lehigh. Those two repeated their finishes from last season, but with Sagl setting both an Emmaus pool record and a new District 11 record with a score of 511.10 in the meet.Rago battled Southern Lehigh's Arden Stayer for third, with Rago passing Stayer on the fourth dive and expanding her lead on the fifth dive of the meet. Unfortunately for Rago, Stayer kept the pressure on and held a six point edge through eight dives. It looked like Stayer would go ahead to stay when Rago had a failed dive in the ninth round, but the sophomore didn't stop battling.In the final round, Rago picked up a score of 24.20, while Stayer had a failed dive. Unfortunately, Stayer had built just enough of a lead to finish 2.6 points ahead from third, which was where Rago had hoped to finish."I would have liked to make it into third and I came close, but I'm pretty happy with how I finished," said Rago. "I had that failed dive that I certainly could have done better on, but otherwise, I think I did pretty well."On the boys side, Devlin came in knowing that a threesome of divers from Salisbury High School would be the primary competition. The three - Dennis Bonner, Tyler Keller and Daniel Bujcs - finished first, second and third respectively, with Devlin finishing fourth.The Salisbury threesome immediately started to separate themselves on the second dive of the meet when the lowest of their three scores was a 46.80 by Bujcs. The three went through the entire event in first, second and third, exactly how they finished. Devlin put up some big scores on individual dives and battled for third, but wasn't able to break into the top three.While eyeing third place, Devlin, a junior, also had to keep his eye on Blue Mountain's Lyle Luckenbill, who kept constant pressure on Devlin for the final medal spot in the event. In the eighth round, Devlin scored a 46.80 to put himself into fourth place to stay."I had some dives that didn't get the scores that I wanted, because I didn't complete them like I should have, but I got a decent amount of points," said Devlin. "This is my first medal ever, so I'm happy with that."