CLARION — Talk about making up for lost time.

Butler graduate Heath Calhoun and his Clarion University diving teammates did that and more last week at the NCAA Division II Diving Championships in Geneva, Ohio.

Calhoun, a senior, felt badly for the team failing to win a national title for veteran coach Dave Hrovat the past two years.

“He’s had an incredible coaching career here,” Calhoun said. “This is his 24th year at Clarion and he didn’t coach a national champion diver in just three of those years.

“Two of those years were the past two. As a team, we talked about how to make up for that.”

The answer was simple. Win four individual national championships, sweep the Diver of the Year honors and enable Hrovat to win Division II Coach of the Year plaudits for his men’s and women’s teams.

Mission accomplished.

And Calhoun capped it off.

Clarion’s Kristin Day had captured the Division II 1-meter and 3-meter diving titles and freshman teammate Collin Vest edged Calhoun by .50 points for the men’s 1-meter crown. Calhoun stepped up to the 3-meter board for the final event of the competition — and delivered.

“Heath was just on fire,” Hrovat said. “I’ve never seen a diver so locked in, so relaxed, so confident. He had six dives and all six were simply perfect, dead on.

“What a way to wrap up a career ... I’ve never seen anything like that.”

That’s saying something. Calhoun’s 3-meter title was the 42rd national championship effort coached by Hrovat. He’s also coached 253 All-Americans.

Calhoun received the NCAA Division II Male Diver of the Year Award while Day was named Female Diver of the Year.

Calhoun’s score of 615.95 in the 3-meter event shattered the previous national record of 581.65, set by Christopher White in 2012. He defeated runner up Dylan Szegedi of Wayne State by a whopping 54.15 points.

“I never thought I’d even sniff the national record,” Calhoun admitted. “That wasn’t on my mind at all.”

The national title was the first of Calhoun’s career. He is a six-time All American diver.

His own teammate kept him from being a two-time national champ this year.

“I was probably happier for Collin than he was,” Calhoun said of Vest’s 1-meter title. “I knew him before he even enrolled at Clarion because I worked camps here and he always came to those camps.

“Even being in the hunt for the 1-meter title was something I didn’t see happening for myself. I performed my best dive of the year, Collin performed his best dive of the year and nosed me out. He deserved it. I was thrilled for him.”

Calhoun had never finished higher than ninth in the 1-meter at nationals. He scored 551.90 in the event this year after tallying 485.50 in 1-meter last year.

Calhoun described Clariion’s team as “a family” and said it was undoubtedly “the closest knit team in the country.”

“We’re the only team to cheer for everybody, including our opponents,” he said. “We want everybody to perform well.”

Because the national meet wasn’t far away, Calhoun had plenty of family and friends in the stands, including Butler diving coach Ken Bedford, who won three national diving titles at Clarion.

“It seemed like it was set up for him,” Hrovat said of Calhoun. “There was an entire section cheering for him, the 3-meter was the last event of the meet, it’s his senior year — what a way to go out.”

And Calhoun went out with a smile on his face.

“Heath’s greatest asset is his ability to not let things get to him,” Bedford said. “At nationals, he was smiling the whole time. He was having fun. Diving has always been fun for him.”

Well, almost.

Calhoun recalled a time when it wasn’t.

“When I first started in diving, I took it too seriously,” he said. “Ken talked to me before my first WPIAL meet and told me there were no expectations, to just have fun with it.

“I relaxed and had my best meet of the year. I’ve been taking that approach ever since.”

Having Bedford on hand to watch him win a national title “was probably the coolest part of this,” Calhoun said.

Other than possible participation in the Keystone State Games this summer, Calhoun said his competitive diving career is likely over.

“I’m hoping to get a graduate coaching position at Clarion for next year,” he said. “We’ll see, I’m just taking it as it comes.”

While looking back fondly on a historic Saturday evening in Geneva.

“I will never forget that night,” Calhoun said. “Never.”