Photo Courtesy of Don Elmore

SAN ANTONIO, Texas – Junior Chelsea Jackson finally captured her elusive first individual WAC title to highlight Day 2 of the WAC Championships as the Northern Arizona swimming & diving team moved into first place in the team standings at the halfway point of the meet. Jackson's win on 3-meter earned the Flagstaff local her first career gold medal.

The Lumberjacks as a team overtook Northern Colorado in the team standings and leads the conference with 228 points, 24 points more than the Bears who sit in second with 204.

For the second straight day, NAU's diving unit enjoyed a strong outing as Jackson was one of three divers to qualify for the finals. Jackson posted the best score in prelims at 272.90 and performed even better in the finals to notch NAU's first individual win of the meet. Jackson's score of 308.95 was her season-high in the finals as she was one of two Lumberjacks on the podium. Sophomore Alexa Geiger placed third for her second medal of this year's championships, totaling a score of 274.60.

"Chelsea got beat out yesterday (on 1-meter) so for her to get the win tonight was awesome," said diving coach Nikki Huffman. "Lex being in third was awesome also and I was proud of the entire team. We've done what we were hoping to do and that was to dive well in prelims and get as many people into scoring positions. Hopefully platform tomorrow will be the same."

Freshman Emma Simmonds continued her exceptional efforts in her first ever conference meet, claiming a spot in the 'B' final with the 12th-best prelim score before improving to 10th overall in the consolations by besting her morning score by 20 points to post a final of 237.95.

Junior Carlye Townsend just missed the 3-meter finals by less than five points finishing 18th in the preliminaries. As a non-scoring diver, freshman Alyssa Loeffelman had one of her best 3-meter performances recording a score of 230.25 which would have placed her seventh and in the championship heat.

"It's great for Chelsea to get a win because she's been close," said head coach Andy Johns. "I know Nikki is super excited about all the divers and we're super proud of how they're performing this week. Without a doubt, they're the reason we're in first place."

In all, the Lumberjacks qualified a total of 11 athletes for the evening finals in the morning with five in the championship heat and six in the consolations. Junior Monica Pruett provided the biggest storyline in the morning, qualifying fourth in the 200 IM with a time of 2:03.99, nearly six seconds better than her seeded time which placed her 15th heading into the meet. Pruett wound up placing eighth in the finals with a time of 2:05.29.

NAU placed five swimmers in the scoring heats of the 500 freestyle, paced by junior Kendall Brown who posted a time of 4:58.61 to qualify fifth. Meanwhile freshmen Kimmy Richter, Claire Hammond, junior Eva Pold and senior Caitlin Wright held down the top four spots in the second group of eight after the prelims to advance to the consolation heat. Brown was also a medalist for the 'Jacks, picking up bronze medal in the finals with a season-best time of 4:54.13 recording her best career finish in the event.

Among NAU's quartet in the 'B' final, Richter and Hammond both posted season-best times of 4:58.32 and 4:58.85 respectively to finish 10th and 11th overall. Pold and Wright placed 15th and 16th with times of 5:03.03 and 5:05.01 respectively.

NAU's freshmen duo of Roni Houck and Alina Staffeldt carried the Lumberjacks in the 50 free after qualifying for the finals following a heated prelims. Houck was NAU's fourth medalist of the night finishing third with a season-best time of 23.59, which is the fifth-fastest time in school history. In the 'B' final, Staffeldt finished 10th with a time of 23.71, also a season-best, rounding out the Lumberjacks' individual scorers for the night.

In the night's only relay – the 200 free relay – the Lumberjacks earned a fourth-place finish with a season-best time of 1:33.89 which was not far off from the school record. Houck, Staffeldt, redshirt junior Alex Huff and senior Alexis Juergens was the NAU quartet that narrowly missed the podium by .12 seconds.

"Monica definitely had the swim of the morning," Johns said. "Caitlin Wright is ill but she was tough to get a second swim. Tonight, Roni and Kendall getting third-place were big for the both of them and our 4 x 50 relay was good as well. There is a lot of enthusiasm and we're anticipating tomorrow because so many of our girls haven't swam a specialty event yet. We're excited that things are starting to click and we're building as we get into this championship meet."

The third day of the WAC Championships begin at 9:30 a.m. Arizona time on Friday. The morning session will include preliminaries for the 400 individual medley, 100 butterfly, 200 freestyle, 100 breaststroke and 100 backstroke. The four finals will then start at 5 p.m. and the night session will also include the 400 medley relay and the meet's final diving event on the platform tower.

NAU Athletics on Facebook and @NAUSwimDive on Twitter will have updates throughout the day. Also head to www.wacsports.com for live result and live video links.