SACRAMENTO, Calif. – Amy Crayne was destined to be a diver. Born to a former All-American diver who built a diving facility in their back yard, she grew up jumping off the boards. After a standout career at St. Francis, Crayne earned a scholarship to dive for Western Kentucky and she shined in her first season.

“My freshmen year has been really great and working with a new coach that was not my mom has been a new experience,” said Crayne during a phone interview from the WKU Media Relations office. “She (Chelsea Ale) has been super great with me and pushed me harder than I have ever worked.”

Crayne, who dove in high school for her mom St. Francis Head Coach Dede Crayne, had several adjustments to make in her initial season. In addition to a new coach, she was diving indoors for the first time and had to adjust to a new school, weather and the collegiate competition.

“The weather was the biggest aspect of the transition,” said Crayne, who admitted to wearing flip flops despite snow falling outside. “I chose Western Kentucky because I wanted something different and it is very different. And I lost my tan, of course.”

She adopted with the help of her new teammates that became her new family in Bowling Green, Ky., more than 1900 miles from her home in California.

“Collegiate sports have been completely different from my club and high school experiences,” said Crayne. “It is lot smaller team. We are a lot of closer and I live with one of my teammates. You are around them all the time. We push each to stay motivated. High school and club was a lot more fun and joking around at practice. You have to rely on your teammates to keep you going in practice when you are tired and you just want to take a nap. You have to really stay motivated and my team helped me do that.”

Crayne, who was a three-time All-American, two-time All-City and four-time All-League honoree, gained early confidence with success in early dual meets for the Hilltoppers. She finished first on both boards (1M, 3M) in each of the first four dual meets and was named the Conference USA Diver of the Meet four times during the season.

“It was really encouraging because I got the awards towards the beginning of the season when I was just getting into college athletics,” said Crayne. “It was really nice to be recognized. Conference is our big meet so it was cool to get Conference Diver of the Week because it shows you are one of the contenders when you get to conference. It was really exciting and the other divers see it and know your name when you get to the meet.”

Crayne and her teammates pushed towards the Conference USA meet, looking for strong performances.

“It was a long season but by the time I got to conference and zones I was really ready to put my best performance out there,” said Crayne. “I worked harder than anyone else and I felt really prepared.”

She finished third on the one meter and fifth on the platform event at C-USA Championships at Georgia Tech.

“At conference I had two great performances and one not so great on the three-meter,” said Crayne. “Diving is all about have a good or bad performance and moving on and being able to forget what happened the day before. I was able to leave my bad performance behind me and perform to the best of my ability on one-meter.”

Crayne, who set two Western Kentucky school records with a 297.60 score on the one meter, breaking a record that stood since 2003, and a 200.70 on the platform during her first season, qualified for the NCAA Zone meet to complete the season.

“Zones were the week after and it was pretty hard to stay motivated for that next week and push towards zones since the whole team did not participate,” said Crayne. “It was a really overwhelming meet with very high-level diving. It is something I was used to but had not seen much of that through the college dual meets. It was a huge meet. Part of diving is overcoming your nerves and it is hard if you not one of the favorites. It is hard to stay confident.”

Crayne finished 25th on the one-meter (240.80), 40th on the three-meter (204.90) and 15th on the platform (193.15) at the NCAA Championship qualifier hosted at Ohio State’s McCorkle Aquatic Pavilion.

“I am really happy with my performance at zones,” said Crane.

After a two-week break, she will begin offseason training with her teammates. She plans to return to Sacramento and dive with her club team at the pool in her backyard in Rio Linda.

“Having a pool in my back yard has been the greatest thing in my life ever,” said Crayne. “I have met so many cool people out there and having your friends come to your house to practice was awesome.”