Margo O’Meara Wins State, Less Than a Year After Tearing ACL

By Thomas Shultz
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Updated: 03/12/2019

With an absolutely absurd score 520.25, O’Meara won her second straight Missouri State Title, setting a new Class 1 Missouri State Diving record, and she has no plans of stopping anytime soon.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Margo O’Meara dominates the competition and brings home a Diving State Title. You have; last year, when Margo won her first title as freshman with a record breaking score of 499.5. Well, she did it again. This year O’Meara broke her own record, posting a score of 520.25, to capture her second straight title.

From the very first dive, O’Meara was the clearly in the driver’s seat, leading the competition for almost the entire day. After the 5 Preliminary Rounds, O’Meara had a score of 220.25, 40 points ahead of the next best diver.

After advancing to the Semi-Finals (3 Rounds), Margo only increased her lead on the field to 50 points with a score of 348.95.

Then in the Finals Rounds, she distanced herself even further. In her final three dives, she averaged a 57, capping it off with a ridiculous final dive that scored a 68.90 (click link for video) to capture the State Title. O’Meara finished 122.55 points ahead of the next best diver.

But despite her dominance in the events, this win is actually a comeback story. Last spring (2018), in a Westminster soccer game, Margo went down with a knee injury, learning a few days later that she had torn her ACL and would need surgery.

“It was tough,” said O’Meara, “To have to shut everything down and wait for everything to heal was frustrating at times, but I knew I just had to wait it out.”

Once she was able, Margo wasted no time in getting back into the gym and regaining her strength for the diving season. Although it was a long and tedious task, Margo was determined to come back stronger than before and ready to make another run at state.

She was finally cleared to get back to diving with no restraints in late November, only a week before the season started.

“Her determination to come back strong motivated the entire team,” said Coach Marjan Kempen, “she worked harder than anyone and deserves the success she’s had.”

O’Meara wasted no time in getting back to her winning ways, taking the top spot in every diving meet and posting scores of 600+ in her 11 dive meets. For those of us who are not familiar with diving, that’s really good.

But despite her success in the season, Margo is able to keep her composure and stay level headed as the dives.

“I try to take it one dive as a time, making sure I focus on what I’m trying to do and not on the scores,” said Margo.

But in the end, the scores do matter. After her final dive, O’Meara looked at the board and mouthed “3 points”, the amount by which she missed the Missouri State Diving record (Currently holds Class 1 Record).

“Yeah I wanted to break it, but at the same time I’m happy to be back.” margo continued, “Coming off of an injury makes this win even sweeter.”

Margo has her sights set on the record next year, so be sure to swing by the Westminster Pool next winter to watch her as she chaces history, and looks add a little more jewlery to her collection.