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Amy Stiehl will never have to ask herself "What if?" The Marshalltown High School junior answered that question already.

Stiehl had a chance to make the second and final cut at the Iowa Girls' High School State Diving Championships Friday night at the Marshalltown Community Y, coming up short when her gave it her all and her eighth dive of the night failed to earn enough points.

The end result was her lowest-scoring dive of the evening and a 20th-place finish in her third state meet appearance in as many seasons. Stiehl got 28th as a freshman and was 19th last fall.

She entered Friday seeded 20th out of 36 divers and finished right there.

"The last dive, I don't know, I wasn't spinning as fast as I should have been," Stiehl said before leaving to catch the second half of the MHS state playoff football game across town. "It was one of those things that when I was in the air, I knew it was slow.

"It's OK. (Head coach) Angie (Nelson) told me (before my last dive) that I had a shot. It's OK, it happens."

Stiehl was in 18th place after scoring 149.6 over her first five dives to make the first cut, which slimmed the state field from 36 to 20 divers. Three more dives eliminated four more divers, of which Stiehl was eventually included.

"I'm excited I got past the first cut," she said. "Angie always says state's like the icing on the cake, so it's good to be diving here because these girls are the best of the best and I'm just happy to be here with them."

Southeast Polk junior Kasey Williams won her school's first state diving championship with a 385.3 total score over 11 dives.

Four of Stiehl's first five attempts turned out to be her highest-scoring dives of the day as simply making that first cut was the primary goal.

"Amy doesn't have a lot of (degree of) difficulty in her list so what we try to do is pull up her best averaging scoring dives and put those at the top," said Nelson. "Knowing that they're going to cut that many girls after the first five rounds, you kind of have to make sure that all your best scoring dives are up front."

By the time her eighth dive rolled around, Stiehl was in 19th place with 31.2 points separating her from a spot in the final 16. She came up short attempting to complete dive '104C', a forward two somersault tuck, and her 16.5-point award dropped her into 20th.

"If that was just a hair cleaner, she probably could've stayed in a little bit longer," said Nelson, "but that happens."

Stiehl finished with a 218.15 total for eight dives.

"I've got to learn to keep the nerves down and just stay calm because I dive a lot better when I'm calm," said Stiehl. "The first couple dives I wasn't (calm) at all but after that it was OK."