Villa Park’s own Andrew Harness has captured the 2019 CIF State Diving Championship and the Southern Section Division 2 diving championship to complete his high school school.
Harness claimed the Southern Section Division 2 championship with 610.35 points on the springboard over freshman Nicholas Chaou of South Pasadena by just over 50 points. After capturing the CIF-SS Division 2 crown Harness finished first in the CIF State Diving Qualification Championships held on Saturday, May 4th at the Riverside Aquatics Complex.
Harness then capped off his senior year two weeks later with literally a perfect ending, by earning perfect 10.0s on his final dive at the CIF State Diving Championships. The first ever perfect 10.0s in the State Diving Championships. Over 11 dives Harness scored a lifetime-best and meet record 640.85 points and bested Jake Fielding of Maranatha HS meet record of 604.35 points. Coincidentally Harness finished second to Fielding at the State Championship meet when that record was set.
Villa Park High School has a long history of producing great swimmers and water polo players, but he is the first to capture a diving section championship or state championship for VPHS.
The University of Texas bound senior started off high school as the runner-up in CIF-SS Division 1 and narrowly finished second the following year at the CIF State Championships to Jake Fielding of Maranatha. He did not dive for VPHS in 2018 due to other diving commitments. Harness also dives with the USC Trojan dive club in Los Angles and has also competed at the USA Diving Junior Nationals the past two years.