Rosemount diver succeeds by minding his business

Two-time Class AA champion will concentrate on process, not scores, at state meet

The first Minnesota state high school boys swimming and diving meet was held exactly 100 years ago. This week Rosemount junior Lucas Gerten has a chance to do something that hasn’t been seen since “S. Larson” of Eveleth put his name in the record book as the inaugural diving champion.

Gerten, the two-time defending Class AA champion, goes into this week’s state competition – which begins at 6 p.m. Thursday at the University of Minnesota – as the favorite to make it three in a row. The all-time state meet 11-dive record of 532.70 points appears in play because Gerten’s personal-best score and Rosemount school record is higher. He scored a career-best 568.80 points at last week’s Section 3AA meet at Two Rivers High School.

The state meet record, Gerten said, won’t be his focus when he arrives at the U of M for the state preliminaries (diving competitors do their first eight dives in Thursday’s preliminaries and the final three during the Class AA swimming finals that start at 6 p.m. Saturday). He’s going to try, as best he can, to ignore the numbers.

He will look around and see one person he’s competing against.

Himself.

That’s not a swipe at the other 31 divers that made it to the Class AA state meet – rather, it’s the mindset Gerten said he needs to have to perform his best.

“That’s been there for a long time, going back to when I did gymnastics,” Gerten said. “I did gymnastics for five years before I started diving. I’m going there to better myself. I don’t focus on the results, especially not during the meet. I’m just thinking about what’s going to happen on that dive. What can I do on that dive to make it better than it was before?”

Gerten joined the Rosemount program as a seventh-grader with no diving experience. “I was kind of getting out of gymnastics,” he said. “I could tell I was losing some of the passion after doing it for so long.

“What really got me into diving was one of my old gymnastics coaches had a story similar to mine. He was a gymnast for a long time and then switched to diving. When he heard that I was leaving he kind of put me on that route – like, ‘Hey, go check out a practice or two.’ I went into one of the Rosemount practices about two weeks into the season, saw what it was about and thought I should give it a shot.”

By eighth grade, he was good enough to qualify for state and finish 13th. In 2022 a top-three finish looked realistic, and he overtook the leader on his final dive to win. Last year he won his second consecutive state title, finishing nearly 50 points ahead of the runner-up.

He’s left a trail of broken records in his wake, including the Rosemount six- and 11-dive marks, the Section 3AA record and an (Apple) Valley Middle School record that had existed since 1979.

“Right away in seventh grade when he was getting into the sport, you could tell he was a little more mature compared to other kids his age,” said Rosemount diving coach Daniel Monaghan, the only other Rosemount High School athlete to win a state diving championship (2013 and 2014). “When we’re at practice having fun, he’s part of that. It’s just teenage boys goofing off a little bit. But when he needs to put himself back in his own zone and focus on his dives, he can do that. It’s amazing.”

Gerten and his coach said the higher scores this year are a result of Gerten taking on more difficult dives. The larger multipliers raise his scores, provided he executes. He’s been up to that challenge.

“A big area of improvement is specifically the dives I’m throwing this year,” Gerten said. “I’m starting to do some harder dives and the overall quality of my dives is getting better.”

Although you can’t play defense in diving in the sense of being able to affect anybody else’s performance, Gerten said he has benefited from the level of competition he’s had in the South Suburban Conference. He’s one of seven SSC divers to qualify for state, the others being Alex Byer and Caleb Baldeshwiler of Lakeville North, Owen Kipp and Stone Larson of Eagan, Porter Woodson of Lakeville South and Maddox Mork of Prior Lake. Kipp, Woodson and Larson finished in the top 16 at state last year.

Gerten describes the dynamic between SSC divers – and across the sport in general – as more collaborative than competitive.

“Especially the Eagan guys, I would almost consider them teammates,” Gerten said. “I’ve gotten to practice with them tons of times. We work as a team, pushing each other to do harder dives. It’s fun to see another diver do something, and then you get that feeling of, ‘I want to do that, too.’

“What makes this sport so much more fun is just being able to go out and do your dives and having all these guys congratulating you. Maybe they do something as well, but they’ve still got your back.”

While he’d certainly be happy with a third state first-place medal, Gerten said he won’t let that occupy his thoughts at state. So what would make it a successful meet?

“I won’t be too focused on the actual result of the meet,” he said. “For me, it’s going to be about the process. It’ll come down to, can I look at a dive and say, ‘Hey, I improved on that.’ If I can say that, I’ll be happy.”