ST. JOSEPH, Minn. – The first time she stepped on the diving board as a collegiate student-athlete, Emily Quill won the one-meter, six-dive competition at the St. Kate's Pentathlon and recorded the third-best score in the College of Saint Benedict swim and dive program's history. And that was just the beginning.
 
Over the course of her first season with the Bennies, Quill broke two school records, won 10 events, qualified for nationals and earned All-American accolades. For her incredible season, Quill is the 2019-20 CSB Rookie of the Year, the department announced Wednesday afternoon. Quill – a Becker native – is the first CSB swimmer or diver to earn the department's Rookie of the Year honor since Ellen Dean in 2010-11. The 2019-20 Rookie of the Year was chosen from a pool of eight nominees from the department's fall and winter sports: volleyball, cross country, soccer, golf, basketball, hockey, indoor track and field and swimming and diving.
 
After moving into the top 10 in program history on the one-meter board in her first meet with Saint Benedict, Quill gave the three-meter board a try. At the Hamline Invite – the second meet of her CSB career – Quill competed on the three-meter board for the first time and took second in the event. Her score of 203.50 moved into sixth in program history in the six-dive competition. By the end of the season, she would be in fourth. She also finished the year fourth in program history on the three-meter, 11-dive list.
 
In her third meet with the team, Quill broke one of the school's oldest diving records. Her one-meter, six-dive score of 282.20 at the Macalester dual bested Katie Macy's previous record – a mark that had stood since 1997 – by three points. In late January in the first 11-dive competition of her career, Quill shattered the one-meter, 11-dive record – set in 2017 by teammate Artie Pomerenke – by more 20 points. She later broke her own record, and her score of 459.05 recorded at the Carleton Diving Invite in February was the second-best score in Division III at the time.
 
Quill took fourth on both boards at the 2020 MIAC Championships to earn a pair of All-MIAC Honorable Mention honors. Thanks to a pair of qualifying scores throughout the course of the season, she earned a trip to the NCAA Central Zone Meet in early March in Granville, Ohio. Over the course of the weekend, she did what no Saint Benedict swimmer or diver has been able to do for nearly two decades: she qualified for nationals.
 
Quill finished in the top 10 on both the one- and three-meter boards at the zone meet, earning her one of 29 spots for divers at the 2020 NCAA Championships in Greensboro, N.C. The last time a CSB swim and dive athlete qualified for nationals was 2002. Unfortunately, due to the COVID19 pandemic the NCAA canceled the national meet and Quill was unable to compete, but she earned CSCAA All-American honors for being a national qualifier. She is CSB's first swimmer or diver to earn All-American accolades since 2001-02, and the first diver to earn the honor since 1997.
 
When all was said and done in her first season at CSB, Quill won 10 events and swept the one- and three-meter boards three times. She finished in the top 10 every time she competed, including the conference meet and the zone meet.