THORNTON — The last two times that Windsor’s Reagan Annable ascended the podium at the Veterans Memorial Aquatic Center for the Class 4A state diving championships, she stood just one step away from the pinnacle, which at the time belonged to Niwot’s Izzy Fay.
On Thursday, in the same meet, for her final ride, she rose all the way to the top, and there was little doubt who would reign queen in 2026 once the ninth of 11 rounds concluded. She ended her day with a gold in hand and a state record of 588.20 points.
“It feels amazing. I have worked really hard to get here, and my diving world has been a little up and down this past year, so it's nice to have all my hard work pay off,” she said. “Honestly, my sophomore year, I was just really happy, because my freshman year I got 17th place. So then making a huge jump like that was a big accomplishment. I ended up breaking my school's record, so I was just happy.
“And then my junior year, I got second to Izzy Fay again, and we were teammates. It was just fun competing against her, and then I knew that we had both worked hard for what we had accomplished, so it wasn't really a disappointment.”
To secure her state title, Annable incorporated an inward double — one that requires a high degree of difficulty — in her fourth dive. She said she hadn’t used it in a competition since last year’s state meet, and didn’t practice it altogether for 10 months, when she was bouncing around from club to club because her original team shuttered.
Once she was able to clear that dive with a favorable score, it was smooth sailing from there. She ended the meet with simplicity to keep herself relaxed.
“I do the math, and I'm like, ‘OK, I know what I need to win,’” Annable explained. “I purposely made my last dive an easier dive, so I didn't have the jitters, because I knew I would feel like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is my last dive I'll ever compete for high school, which is so sad.’ I know this is one of my dives that I'm the most confident with, so I was really happy that I did my last dive as a back dive.”
As far as Windsor coach Ryan Palmer knows, she’s the first state champion diver to ever grace the Wizards’ halls. He said that since the moment she stepped on campus, she’s been the kind of teammate that every coach dreams of — always supportive, always cheering on the other girls.
He said she set the standard for diving at Windsor. Next year, she heads to Wyoming.
“Coming into today, it wasn't a shoo-in by any means,” Palmer said. “She still had to go out and earn it. I think after the first two or three rounds, she was down to (Golden’s Myranda Macmillan) by about 22 points. It was a pretty big margin to come back by, but she executed some really difficult dives when she needed to, and that definitely helped her out in the long run.
“I've seen substantial growth from her year-after-year. She's had a combination of club diving over the last several years, as well as high school diving. A lot of that comes down to her as an athlete. You can go over techniques and all of that stuff, but at the end of the day it comes down to the diver themselves, and she's incredible, truly incredible.”
Other top finishers in the event include Golden's Myranda MacMillan, who finished second with a score of 574.60, Pueblo South's Autumn Zumpf (third, 515.80), Niwot's Genevieve Saunders (fourth, 511.15), Standley Lake's Kira White (fifth, 472.85), Lewis-Palmer's Paige Ehresman (sixth, 464.35), Pueblo County's Lily Nibert (seventh, 463.80), Niwot's Sienna Wood (eighth, 452.25), Liberty's Nicole West (ninth, 435.95) and Mountain View's Madeline Clark (10th, 432.25).