During her sophomore year, Lara vonSeelan almost saw her diving career at Penn State end.

While attempting a dive, she shattered her hand and possibly her dreams of diving at NCAAs.

"They didn't think I'd be able to dive again," vonSeelan said. "I went through periods where I didn't think I could do it. I knew it was going to be a long road back."

But at the end of the long road, like at the end of a rainbow, was a pot of gold. After redshirting that sophomore year, vonSeelan came back last season and won the 3-meter board at the Eastern Championships. It was the first time a Lady Lion won that event since Mary Ellen Clark in 1985. With Amy Schmidt's victory on the 1-meter board, Penn State struck gold on both boards last year.

This season, vonSeelan has remained consistent throughout the season. After a slow start, she has come back to capture the 3-meter board at the Princeton Invitational and won the 1-meter board in the team's dual meet with Princeton the following week.

Last weekend, the team went against Ohio State's Lori Gaddis, one of the nation's best divers. After watching vonSeelan, the Big Ten is probably grateful that she is graduating. The senior held her own, narrowly losing to Gaddis on the 3-meter.

Recruiting vonSeelan was very easy, in fact, it was more like she recruited Penn State. While at Garden City High School, she received many offers from universities, but she knew Penn State was for her.

"I knew Penn State had a real good School of Communications, and I want to be a newscaster," vonSeelan said. "Once I met Brownie (diving coach Craig Brown), we just totally clicked. I knew I had a good thing and I wanted to make sure he knew that, so I called him every week of my senior year."

Added Brown, "She just popped in unexpectedly the summer before her senior year, and she chatted with me on the outdoor pool. She called here a lot. She was more active in her recruiting process than I was."

At 5'9", vonSeelan is taller than the average diver. Brown said she does not jump well, but her jumps have improved over the years, and her dives have a lower degree of difficulty.

What she lacks in degree, she makes up for in scores. Her dives are very consistent, and her scores make it tough on opponents because they have to be as consistent. In addition, she has become a more solid technical diver.

Brown said she enters the water very well for a tall person, and she does not make a large splash, abilities which improve her scores. Her size also helps more on the high-board than on the 1-meter.

"With her size on low-board, it looks cumbersome," Brown said. "But on high-board, it looks real impressive."

Before she approaches the board, vonSeelan has a ritual she goes through. Not only does she rehearse the dive in her mind, but she looks to Brown, who is usually a judge, for a word of encouragement.

"I usually call over and it's a ritual for him to tell me right before I get on the board, what to think of," she said. "It's become a habit of mine to yell, 'Brownie! Brownie!' It's for moral support."

But once vonSeelan is on the board, she said it's just like auto pilot.

She won't be trying anything new as she prepares for Easterns, but will work on the finesse and appearance of her dives. She will also be working to maintain her consistency. In a few meets, she missed one dive by a little bit, but it was enough to have a point swing. If she's going to win at Easterns again, vonSeelan will have to duplicate her performance of last year.

"Last year she didn't make any mistakes," Brown said. "She made everybody else chase her because if they made a mistake, they were playing catch up. She didn't give up an inch."

With the Eastern Championships set for Feb. 21-23, vonSeelan will look to become only the third Penn State diver to repeat as Eastern champion. But the pressure of coming back as the champ does not affect vonSeelan's outlook on the event.

"It's my last year, so I'm just going to go in and have the best time and just live it up," she said. "It's the last time I have to deal with the turmoil of Easterns. However it falls, I'm just going to deal with it."