THOMASVILLE — A pair of Thomasville High divers are hoping for individual state championships when they compete at the Georgia High School Association state meet on Thursday, Feb. 3.

Juniors A.C. Taylor and Jake Pinney will compete against the rest of the state during their meet, hosted at Georgia Tech.

Thomasville High coach Kenly Milam discussed the opportunity her two divers have and the chance to increase the sport’s popularity in South Georgia.

“It’s truly an honor to have this opportunity to watch them dive and learn more about diving. It’s not a popular sport around here. A lot of people don’t do it,” said Milam, whose two divers both train at Moss Farms Diving in Moultrie. “Moss Farms is pretty elite. Last year, I had four divers to go to state and one of them dives at UGA (University of Georgia) now. Two of them went to other colleges. One of them is A.C. Taylor who still dives.”

Former Thomasville swimmer Nolan Lewis, who now competes at UGA, won the Georgia 1-3A state championship on the 1-meter dive last year.

Taylor and Pinney hope to continue Thomasville’s diving success, as they will compete in the 1 meter dive competition as well.

The pair will be scored by a panel of five judges. They will execute six dives at the state meet. The lowest and highest scores for each dive will be dropped, leaving three scores for each dive. All the scores will be tallied and multiplied by the dive’s degree of difficulty which will give the participants their total. All six totals will be added up for a final score.

Thomasville will have one final meet before state. It will travel to Westminster in Atlanta on Friday.

Milam also uses her coaching platform to educate others about the sport, specifically, the fourth graders she teaches at Scott Elementary

“I talk to them about what it is because they don’t really know. I didn’t know until I was thrown into it. I take that opportunity to teach my kids about it, too,” Milam said.