BOWLING GREEN, Ky.- A pair of Western Kentucky University divers will look to qualify for the NCAA Championships by participating in the NCAA Zone C Diving Championships starting on Thursday, March 14 at the Boilermaker Aquatic Center at the University of Purdue.
Senior Caitlin Dean and freshman Giorgi Meyer will each look to advance to the NCAAs for WKU, as Dean will be one of 55 women divers while Meyer is one of 39 competing on the men's side. The top 18 finishers in the springboard prelims and the top 12 in the platform prelims advance to the championship rounds, from which the divers qualify for the NCAA Championships.
Dean is coming off a strong performance at the Sun Belt Conference Championships where she placed second on both boards, including posting a school-record 299.50 on the three meter. Meyer also put together good evaluations at the Conference USA Men's Invitational, with a sixth and eighth place on the one and three-meter boards, respectively.
There is a unique matrix utilized to divvy up the nine qualifying spots among the three competitions. In Zone C, automatic bids go to the top four finishers in the 3-meter, the top three performers in the 1-meter and the top two finishers in the platform. However, if a competitor places highly among multiple events at his or her Zone meet, he or she will not account for more than one of the nine qualifying slots allotted to his or her gender.
Virginia Tech (Zone A), Tennessee (Zone B), Houston (Zone D) and Air Force (Zone E) are also hosting Zone meets this week.
Live scoring for the Zone Championships is available at divemeets.com.
The schedule for the competition is listed below:
Thursday - Men's 1-Meter & Women's 3-Meter, Prelims Begin at 10 a.m. ET
Friday - Men's 3-Meter & Women's 1-Meter, Prelims Begin at 10 a.m. ET
Saturday - Men's & Women's Platform, Prelim Begin at 11 a.m. ET
