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Grace Zifcak ‘22 Recruiting Profile

  • Winston Churchill High School
  • POTOMAC, MD
  • Women's Diving
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Grace Zifcak's Women's Diving Recruiting Profile
Club:
Montgomery Dive Club (MD)
Height:
5'4"
Weight:
130
Age:
19
Prim. Position:
3m Springboard
Sec. Position:
1m Springboard
3m 10 Dive Score
342.50
1m 6 Dive Score
249.65
1m 11 Dive Score
379.65

Personal Statement

Working Dive List:

3M: 105b, 205c, 303c, 405c, 5132d, 5235d

1M: 105c, 203c, 303c, 403b, 5132d, 5233d.   Placed 1st at Conference Divisional's Feb 2022

7M: 103b, 105b, 301c, 405c

******************************

My name is Graze Zifcak and I am a Senior at Winston Churchill High School in Potomac, MD. I am the middle child of five in a large blended family. I aspire to be a competitive college diver and study psychology. 

My passion to excel began at a young age, when I started gymnastics at 18 months old! At age 3 I was invited to join the development team and by level 5 (age 7) I was spending 22 hours a week training. Gymnastics has been a large part of my life for the past 15 years and reaching level 9 has been rewarding. As a competitive gymnast I was taught discipline, focus and respect for my coaches, who push me to be a better person in so many ways. 

From a young age I have watched gymnasts graduate and head off to compete in College, wondering when I would do the same. Little did I know that at age 15 I would be faced with a life changing accident. A tree holding up the hammock I was in fell on me and broke my neck and injured my spinal cord, right as I was ready to jump into freshman year of  high school. With the best care at Children’s Hospital in DC, I was on the road to recovery with now two fused vertebrae. During my two months in the hospital, all I could think of was “will I be able to get back to gymnastics?'' I hit the gym as soon as I was cleared, but the repetitive pounding put too much strain on my body to continue training as intensely as before. I did not want to slow down but knew continuing  at that high level wasn’t what was best for my body. 

That summer I was doing flips at my neighborhood pool and the coach there asked me if I had ever dove with a team before. I never had but he said I should try out for the summer dive  team. Three weeks in, I broke the pool’s dive record. I realized that I could translate my years of gymnastics to diving without the toll on my body. I realized that I could pour my desire to excel into diving instead of gymnastics. Being fully recovered and cleared by my doctors,  I started to get serious about diving and trained hard. In the fall I tried out for a club program and made the National team.  In the winter I made the Varsity Dive team at my high school and came in 18th at Metros (DC, MD and VA) and earned "Most Improved" for the season. For the 6 month before the pandemic I was training 5-6 days a week. COVID has limited access to pools in my county over the last year and I have traveled with my coaches from Florida to West Virginia for any diving hours I could find (there were just not enough). Recently,  things have opened up a bit more and I am able to get 6 days of dive/dryland practice a week, 3-4 days of weights/strength training  a week and 3 days of gymnastics practice a week.  Recently I competed at AAU Nationals in Coral Springs, FL, where I placed 4th on 3M and 5th on 1M.  I am also building at platform list. I attended a dive camp at Stanford this summer where I learned a 405 on 7M, to add to my dive list. My goal is to complete my 05 list as soon as possible.  I am working on it! 

With how much I have improved  in the 18 months of my diving career, I am looking forward to even  more training hours as access to pools increases.  I spend all my free time training, between dryland practices, weight training, some gymnastics and every second I can get at any pool. I know I will improve even more. I feel primed for success and excited to join a strong competitive dive team, where my passion and perseverance can carry me closer to where I am my best. At the edge of the diving board. 

Athletics

High School Information

  • Years w/ Varsity:
  • 3 years
  • 2021 Varsity Team
  • Individual Awards:
    1st Team All-Conference, 1st place Conference Divisional Championship
  • 2020 Varsity Team
  • 2019 Varsity Team
  • Individual Awards:
    18th in Metro Area

Club Information

  • Seasons of Club Experience:
  • 2 seasons
  • 2021 Montgomery Dive Club (MD) (National Team)
  • Notes: 3M Dive List; 105b, 205b, 303c, 405c, 5132d, 5235d. 1M Dive List: 105c, 203c, 303c, 403c, 5132d, 5233d. 7M 103b, 105b, 301c, 405c
  • 2020 Montgomery Dive Club (National Team)

Coach References

  • Club Coach
  • Tim Fisher
  • Travel / Club Coach
  • Wes Mattice
  • Travel / Club Coach
  • Kevin Burke

Additional Sports

  • Gymnastics
  • F
  • 10 Years
  • Club/Travel Team
  • Level 8 Gymnast- Regional Bar Champion in 2018

Academics

Grades

This information is unavailable to unknown [or unregistered] users

Test Scores

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High School Information

High School:
Winston Churchill High School
State:
MARYLAND
Phone:
(301) 469-1200

Academic Accomplishments

Honors Classes:
Yes. Honor English 9 Honors English 10 Honors US History Honor Modern World History Honors Geometry Honors Biology Honors Chemistry Honors Chinese 3 Honors Health Honors Statistics
AP Classes:
Yes. AP NSL Gov't and Politics AP Psychology AP Language and Composition AP Environmental Science AP Computer Science AP Literature
Registered with the NCAA Eligibility Center?
Yes

Awards, Achievements and Activities

  • Award
    • Honor Roll every semester in High School
  • Award
    • Churchill High School Ambassador
  • Award
    • Invent the Future Award ***You'll notice that my transcript starts with classes from middle school (6th grade)
  • Award
    • specifically Chinese
  • Award
    • which was particularly challenging. And my first semester of 9th grade I spent half of it in the hospital recovering from an accident. With maturity and better study skills you will see that my grades the last 2.5 years have better shown what kind of student I am. My GPA without middle school classes is a 3.7
  • Award
    • and my GPA from second semester 9th grade onward is 3.8 I have chosen to take honors and AP classes to challenge myself whenever possible. My senior year I am taking 2 more AP classes
  • Award
    • AP Comp Sci and AP Literature.
  • Activity
    • High School Ambassador
  • Activity
    • Internship at Elementary School teaching art
  • Activity
    • High School Varsity Wrestling Team Manager
  • Activity
    • Church Youth Group
  • Activity
    • Best Buddies member
  • Activity
    • gymnastics coach for children 3-10 years old
  • Activity

My Info

Contact Information

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Mailing Address

This information is unavailable to unknown [or unregistered] users

Statistics

 
 

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