PORT ANGELES — Austin Fahrenholtz has those twisters down pat.
The Port Angeles High School senior’s favorite diving move propelled him to his second straight Class 2A state diving championship.
Fahrenholtz, 5-foot-9 sopping wet, not only easily won a second consecutive title but he also shattered the district and state meet records he set as a junior.
The diver recorded a new state mark with 376.10 points in 2011 but then completely wiped the slates clean with a total score of 427.20 on Feb. 18.
“My goal this year was to break last year’s record and to be No. 1 [in state] again,” Fahrenholtz said.
Goal accomplished. And then some.
Fahrenholtz went undefeated on the year, winning every Olympic League meet and also winning all invitational events and all postseason meets.
The diver did it without coming up with new super-duper dives. He just took what he knew and perfected it.
“Actually, I mostly did the same dives I did last year, only I did them better,” Fahrenholtz said.
Most of his dives involve twisting.
“For my dives, I like twisting, inwards, front-doubles and inward 1½,” he said.
“Austin basically does a back-double reverse twister to back-twister,” Port Angeles diving coach Peter Van Rossen said.
“He perfected the dives he did last year.”
In addition to his state title and new records, Fahrenholtz was nominated for high school All-American honors.
“That’s quite an honor,” Van Rossen said.
Last year, Fahrenholtz received All-American honors with the lower diving score, and so it’s just a matter of hearing back from the All-American officials.
In 2011, at the state meet in the King County Aquatic Center, Fahrenholtz wowed the judges with his patented reverse twister.
“His reverse twister is unique,’ Van Rossen said. “It’s an inward somersault with a twist. No one else does it.”
Van Rossen and Fahrenholtz, though, got together and decided to go with the reverse back at state instead of the reverse twister.
The strategy worked as the senior diver blew the field away at state.
Another element that helped Fahrenholtz this year was his jumping ability on the board.
“He’s gotten bigger and stronger this year, and he’s been getting higher in the air,” Van Rossen said.
Fahrenholtz learned most of his diving moves from years of jumping on a trampoline with advice from his dad, Craig Fahrenholtz, who won a high school district diving championship in Denver.
“They didn’t have state competition at the time,” Fahrenholtz said about his dad’s accomplishments.
The younger Fahrenholtz had years of experience perfecting his trampoline moves.
“He’s always been on a trampoline,” his mother, Susan, said.
Fahrenholtz really got interested in diving when his family took a trip to Kansas when he was a sixth grader.
“They have outdoor pools in Kansas, which we don’t have around here,” Susan Fahrenholtz said.
Her son did his first diving moves that summer in Kansas, she added.
“But he had to learn how to land differently in diving,” Susan Fahrenholtz said.
“To do stuff on the trampoline, you always land on your feet. But you have to learn it’s OK to land on your head in diving.”
Once Fahrenholtz got over landing on his head, his diving career took off.
And now he plans to take his sport to the next level, which his dad never had the opportunity to do.
“At first, I wasn’t going to dive in college,” Fahrenholtz said.
He said he felt he needed a break from the grueling, both physically and mentally, sport.
“We have all been pushing him to dive in college,” Van Rossen said.
“It would have been a shame if he didn’t dive on the next level because he can do it.”
Fahrenholtz has relented.
“I’m planning to dive in college now,” he said. “I have decided I wanted to try it, and see where it takes me.
“I think I need to do it, so I won’t regret it later.”
Fahrenholtz has applied to Fresno Pacific University and is waiting to hear back from the school.
Meanwhile, Fahrenholtz’s departure from the Port Angeles program will leave a huge hole to fill for the boys swimming and diving team.
“The four years we have had him in our program has been great,” Van Rossen said.
“I will miss him.”
There are younger divers coming up but don’t expect Fahrenholtz to be replaced any time soon, according to Van Rossen.
It will take a couple of years of training to get the Roughriders close to the level they are this here in diving, he added.
In the meantime, Fahrenholtz can be found on the boys soccer field in spring sports for the first time in three years.
He missed the last two years of soccer because he was just too exhausted, physically and mentally, at the end of diving season to take on another sport in spring, Susan Fahrenholtz said.
“Austin decided to give soccer a try this year,” she said. “He was wondering if he made the right decision at first because he was so tired after practice.
“But now he’s glad he went out for it.”
Fahrenholtz said he decided to play the sport his senior year because it’s his last shot for it in high school.
“It’s fun, I have friends on the soccer team and I can get into shape,” he said.
In the first game of the year, Fahrenholtz helped the Riders out with a goal and an assist in a 7-0 rout of Forks last weekend.
It’s like he was never gone from the sport for two years.
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Sports Editor Brad LaBrie can be reached at 360-417-3525 or at brad.labrie@peninsuladailynews.com.
