Centerville diver aims for top-three finish at state meet

In the sport of diving, where many of his competitors at this weekend’s state meet have been training through gymnastics since they were 6, Centerville senior Austin Flaute has made a name for himself in four short years.

And perhaps nowhere did that sink in more for Flaute than at the Division I swimming and diving state championships his sophomore season, just his second year of diving.

As a freshman, Flaute finished 14th at the state meet. The next season, he waited to hear his name called as the public address announcer ran down the final scores. Flaute waited. And waited. And waited a little more. At one point Flaute half wondered if they accidentally skipped him.

They hadn’t.

“I ended up fourth. I didn’t know I made the top eight,” Flaute said. “When they called my name I was completely dumbfounded by it. They weren’t calling my name and I was waiting as they counted down from 8, 7, 6, 5. When they called my name I was like, ‘Wow.’ ”

Flaute continues to impress as he enters the 1-meter diving championships Saturday at the C.T. Branin Natatorium in Canton. The three-time district champion is seeded No. 6 in the 24-diver field. Flaute has finished fourth at the state meet both his sophomore and junior seasons. This season he wants a top-three finish, which is as challenging as his toughest dive – a front 2½ pike with one twist.

The top four seeded divers at state are all members of USA Diving’s High Performance Squad. The team has three tiers, with the four state competitors members of Tier Three (formerly known as the Junior National Squad).

“I’m excited for it, but there’s also a lot of pressure,” Flaute said. “Hopefully all the training I’ve had has prepared me. I think it’ll be a lot of fun because I already know all the guys. I compete with them outside of the high school season.”

One of those meets was the 2017 USA Diving Junior National Championship where Flaute was a 1-meter finalist and finished 12th in the country. He qualified for the quarterfinals in the 3-meter competition.

That performance grabbed the attention of college programs like Duke, Kentucky, Notre Dame and Virginia Tech. Flaute signed with Notre Dame and plans to minor in civil engineering and attend graduate school for architecture.

“He’s a pretty outstanding kid in so many ways, even beyond diving. He’s an accomplished student,” Centerville diving coach Alice Licata said.

“He has great body awareness and control. He has quick reflexes and he’s super smart. You put all that together and in a relatively short time … it’s pretty remarkable what he’s accomplished. You just never see this. That’s what makes him to me one of the more spectacular divers in the area.”

Competitors at the state meet are scored on 11 dives overall. Flaute – who also competes with the WTRC Dive club team based in Washington Twp. – has tougher dives he can do but said he plans on sticking with the ones he’s mastered for state.

“He had dives in his list that you really only see at the college level,” Licata said. “He’s one of the most dedicated and hard-working kids I’ve seen.”

Early on, baseball was Flaute’s first love. But the shortstop/third baseman soon discovered diving was his best athletic option for success even if it meant training nearly 40 hours a week during the summer and 25-30 hours a week (plus about 10 hours of driving time) during the school year.

“The feeling of nailing a dive. Just the precision of the sport it takes,” Flaute said of his favorite things about the sport. “The attention to detail. How it takes constant work to maintain it. It just never gets old.”

STATE SWIMMING AND DIVING

Where: C.T. Branin Natatorium, Canton

Wednesday

• Boys D-II diving

• Girls D-II diving

Thursday

• Girls D-I diving, 9 a.m.

• Girls and boys D-II swim prelims, 5 p.m.

Friday

• Girls and boys D-I swim prelims, 9 a.m.

• Girls and boys D-II swim finals, 5 p.m.

Saturday