By Kim J. Harmon

NEW HAVEN – Alyssa von Oy knew if she were to win the CIAC Class L diving championship this year, she would have to get by Kim Grant of Fitch to do it.

And even as von Oy clung to a four-point lead heading into the diving finals on Tuesday at Southern Connecticut State University, she remained confident.

“I wasn’t really that nervous actually. I was more thinking about how my degree of difficulty was higher than Kim’s (on the final two dives) and I knew I could hit my dives,” said von Oy, who added, “And I needed my revenge.”

Von Oy nailed both of her dives on Tuesday night and finished 17 points ahead of Grant (366.85 – 349.25) to claim the CIAC Class L title.

While von Oy has stood above the rest of the competition in the South-West Conference for the last two years, the state title was something she eagerly sought and, after losing to Grant last season, wanted it even more.

But even as the preliminaries progressed and von Oy and Grant separated themselves from the rest of the pack, von Oy remained stoic.

“I tried to keep my head in it and just get up on the board do my best,” she said.

And her best was better than all the rest, earning the first state championship for Newtown High School in the eight seasons it has been under the tutelage of coach Brian Reiff. But von Oy, of course, is still not ready to rest.

“I’m always looking to the next competition,” she said.

Looking back a couple of weeks, though, von Oy captured her second consecutive South-West Conference championship and while she was easily the odds-on favorite to capture the title (she hadn’t been beaten in the conference in two seasons), she did get some health competition from a somewhat unexpected source.

Her teammate, Greg Simoneau.

“I didn’t think he would do as well as he did,” said von Oy. “He really put it together.”

Von Oy already had it together. Being the favorite, it seemed like all she had to do was get up on the board and perform. Trouble was, her own body – suffering from a bacterial infection of some sort – was attempting to slow her down.

“Being the favorite puts a lot of pressure on,” she said, “but I knew there wasn’t a lot of competition so I wasn’t too worried.”

For von Oy, it was all a matter of hard, hard work. She suffered an ankle injury in the fall and missed about three months of off-season training with her diving instructor – “and that wasn’t too good,” she said – but once she got the okay from her doctor, she attacked the board.

The question last December was, would the ankle injury slow her down?

“Anytime there is an injury, you get concerned. But I went for as many practices (with my coach) as I could,” she said, “and worked really, really hard.”

The ankle injury, in fact, didn’t slow her down at all. Almost immediately, she started challenging the 23-year-old diving record of Larry Newquist and came within a few points of it in a season-opening win against West Haven.

But in the next meet, on Tuesday,_December 21, 1999, she broke the Newquist record - scoring 248.15 points in a win over Jonathan Law.

That set the tone for von_Oy for the rest of the 1999-2000 campaign.

Success and hard work.

All that hard work led to a SWC title and a CIAC Class L title.

And maybe a State Open title this Saturday?

Coach Reiff, who has marveled all season long not only at the ability of von Oy but also the ability of his other divers, Greg Simoneau (5th in the state), Kyle Neidig (ninth in the state), Pat Monahan and Greg_Taylor, thinks von Oy has a decent shot in the Opens.

“I already think she is in the top three,”_he said.

Let’s wait and see.