COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – Junior Chelsea Jackson advanced to the 3-meter finals on the first day of the NCAA Zone E Diving Championships and finished 18th overall for the Northern Arizona swimming & diving team. Sophomore Alexa Geiger placed 42nd in the preliminary round on Monday at the competition held at the Air Force Academy.

"Chelsea dove really well and she just missed one dive in both the prelims and the finals," said diving coach Nikki Huffman. "This was the best 3-meter prelim zones that I have ever seen and Chelsea was in the mix. She was in the top nine for a while, but she just needed to be a little more on fire to make it further. Lex also did some really good things, but she just missed some line ups early that cost her. She still did pretty well and tomorrow (on 1-meter) is her better board so we have a lot to look forward to."

After spending time in the top 10, Jackson nabbed the 18th – and final – spot in the finals with a preliminary score of 282.45 in what was a highly competitive morning session. The WAC Champion on 3-meter then posted a finals score of 263.85 to wind up in 18th overall with a two-round score of 546.30.

Geiger recorded a score of 235.45 in the preliminaries in her first action since picking up a pair of medals – including a bronze medal on 3-meter – at the WAC Championships a week and a half ago.

The Lumberjack duo will conclude their Zone Championships on Tuesday with the 1-meter competition starting at 10 a.m. Flagstaff time.

Catch live results of the action at divemeets.com.