Rebecca St. Germain is a little ways from home. The freshman diver is in her first year at LSU and has noticed a difference between her hometown of San Antonio, Texas, and Baton Rouge.  “The weather is crazy here, I’ve come to find,” she said. “But I like it.” St. Germain is becoming a major force in her first season for the Lady Tigers on the diving board while still adjusting to life in Louisiana.In her first meet as a Lady Tiger, she scored an NCAA Zone Regional qualifying score.  “It was really exciting and very unexpected,” St. Germain said. “It felt really good. I felt like [diving coach Doug Shaffer] really pushed me, and I have come a long way.” St. Germain was a club diver before she attended LSU and said club diving is different from college diving.”Diving in college is a lot more exciting,” St. Germain said. “It’s more laid back than club diving, which is nice. There’s less stress, I’m sure, until it comes down to the big meets.”St. Germain also said she didn’t expect college diving training to be as hard as it is.”Diving is more of a jumping sport, and having to run stadium stairs at 5 a.m. is a definite change of pace,” St. Germain said. “It gets you in shape a lot faster, and I feel I have more energy than I’ve had before.” Shaffer said the transition is usually an “eye-opener” for incoming freshmen, but St. Germain is focused. “From all of the divers, I really feel there is a unified direction they’re really working very hard and very well,” he said.Fellow freshman diver Elle Schmidt said practice is fun with St. Germain.”She is usually really cheerful, really peppy, which is good,” Schmidt said. “You want to practice with people like that. It keeps the mood light even when things aren’t going awesome for everyone.” St. Germain said she set some personal goals for herself this season and has already accomplished some of them.”One of them was to break 300 [points in an event], and I got that last week,” she said.St. Germain was named the Southeastern Conference Female Diver of the Week after her performance against Tulane, scoring more than 300 in both the three-meter and one-meter diving. St. Germain said her goal now is to make it to NCAA championships and perform well for her team.She said she misses home but that her fellow roommates helped her adjust to life away from home.  Schmidt, one of St. Germain’s roommates, is from Mansfield, Ohio, and said having a roommate from out of town helped her adjust as well.”We both get homesick, and we both miss home,” Schmidt said. “It’s easy to talk to her about stuff like that.” Schmidt and St. Germain are the only female divers and became close before they attended LSU — the two went on the same recruiting trip.Schmidt earned a Zone Regional qualifying score against Tulane, and said St. Germain was one of the first to congratulate her.”When she got her score, I was thrilled for her, and she was so excited when I got mine,” Schmidt said.St. Germain said she is also adjusting to college classes. “College is harder than high school for sure,” St Germain said. “But I’m surviving. I’m hanging in there and doing well.” – – – -Contact Amos Morale at [email protected]