On May 21, the Frederick News Post released their All-County girls swimming and dive teams. Oakdale’s Julia Doolittle won Diver of the Year while her sister Morgan Doolittle got second on the team. 

The Doolittles dive for Oakdale along with their club team, the Montgomery Diving Club. They started diving only three years ago; and before that, they competed in gymnastics for nine years. Their Gymnastics background benefited them when they made the switch to diving. 

Julia stated, “Gymnastics gave me air awareness so I learned new dives easier because I knew where I was in the air.” 

The Doolittle twins are inseparable; they are super close and do practically everything together including synchronized diving. Along with being close, they also push each other to do better and to become exceptional divers. While there may be a little sibling rivalry, they both want to succeed and be the best divers they can be.  

Morgan exclaimed, “Julia pushes me to succeed because it makes me want to work harder with the competition between us.” 

Unlike many team sports, diving is heavily reliant on the individual performance. Each diver receives their own score for each dive; this can be very stressful for some people as they do not have a team to help them out physically along the way. However, the team still helps each other out mentally. 

Morgan mentioned, “Diving has a lot of fear involved and pushing yourself, so having supportive teammates there with you makes it so much better and helps you get your mind off of the fear.”  

The twins dive every day after school for multiple hours at a time. During this time of the Coronavirus, they are still focused on diving as they have zoom meetings with their teammates, they have workouts that they participate in, and they are emailing colleges to try and take their talents to the next level — as both of them are very capable of doing. 

Both of them would like to dive in college, and it is a factor in choosing what college they attend. They want to go to a school that is not only good at diving but also that has a great program for their career. One college in particular they are both looking into is the University of Pittsburgh. 

Morgan and Julia Dolittle are some of the best divers and are even finer people. They are looking forward to their senior year to participate in one more diving season. Make sure to get out to at least one dive meet and, I promise, you will be amazed at the skills these two possess. Congratulations to both of them on their amazing achievement!