Ryan Ladika/MDN Bella Price signs her National Letter of Intent at the Magic City Campus Wednesday afternoon.

A sport for which she only recently lost her passion has proved to be the foundation for Minot High senior Bella Price’s post-high school career.

The gymnast-turned-diver, who initially was unsure she would continue diving at the collegiate level, could not stay away from her newest sport in the end, and Wednesday afternoon made official her plans to continue her diving career at the University of Nebraska Omaha this fall.

Price pointed to numerous friends and family members as instrumental in her decision to join the Mavericks, including her cousin and Minot native Mason Morelli, who played hockey at Omaha from 2015-2019 and spent time with the Minot Minotauros before most recently playing in the ECHL and AHL with the South Carolina Stingrays and Hersey Bears.

“Him and my aunt and uncle both told me a bunch of stuff, I got to meet his girlfriend who was the captain of the swim team, and she graduated there last year,” Price said. “So I got to talk to her and all of them just told me all the good things about it, all the pros and cons, and everything just seemed like the best fit for me. I’m so excited.”

She quickly fell in love with Omaha’s campus upon her first visit and the business department that offered her what she was looking for as far as a starting point into the world of entrepreneurship made her decision an easy one.

Outside of the pool, one of Price’s most passionate hobbies is baking and she has always wanted to factor the activity into a full-time career. She had also been accepted into culinary school before she finalized her decision to continue diving and found the right first steps at Omaha leading to a potential journey of opening her own bakery.

“Their business administration and everything there was really good,” she added. “I got to talk to the athletic academic advisor for the business department and she was great. She gave me so much good information that just drew me in even more. The whole process just kept on getting better and better as I went through the visit.”

Price’s commitment comes on the heels of a decorated three-year high school diving career that followed a stint in gymnastics that began when she was just two years old.

The Majettes swim & dive team finished third in state last fall, and Price earned a second-place overall finish on the diving board to conclude a season that saw the senior set a new Minot High diving record in the team’s first home meet of the season.

She also earned two consecutive Western Dakota Association regional individual titles in 2020 and 2021 on the diving board, highlighted by a new school record 457 final score to aid her in clinching the honors in ’21, as well as All-WDA and All-State First Team honors for her 2021 efforts.

“I feel very fortunate that I got the chance to work with her because she’s a phenomenal athlete in not only diving, but she was an excellent gymnast, and she does a great job in track as well,” Barb McPeak, Price’s diving coach, said. “Wherever she goes, she’s going to fit in and do well.”

Price is glad to have been able to finish her high school career on such a strong note and will remember most the effort that she and her teammates put into producing a finish to be proud of at the state meet in Bismarck.

“This last year, senior year, was by far the most influential, significant. We really tried hard to come together as a team and did a lot of stuff together,” she continued. “We pushed ourselves so much and doing that was just really great. The coaches, I’m going to love them and miss them all the time. I’m going to come back and love coming to all the meets and getting to reminisce all the stuff we got to do. That’s going to be fun.”