GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.— Nine Colorado Mesa University divers will tune-up for the upcoming Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Championships when they head to this week's Air Force Diving Invitational, which begins Thursday in the Falcons' Cadet Natatorium on the United States Air Force Academy grounds.  Additionally, four of the competing Mavericks will look to join three already qualified teammates for the NCAA Division II Pre-Championship Qualification meet as they will go in search of national qualifying scores.
 
Meet Format/Schedule
 
Preliminary rounds will begin at 10:30 a.m. on both Thursday and Friday.  The top twelve divers will then advance to the finals, which will begin at 1 and 1:30 p.m. on those days.
 
Thursday's action will include competition in the men's 3-meter and women's 1-meter events.  Friday's action will include the other two springboard events, the women's 3-meter and men's 1-meter.  Platform diving will be contested on Saturday, but the Mavericks will not be competing on that day.
 
Each round will feature 6-dive formats.
 
Who's Competing
 
Here is the list of nine (4 men, 5 women) divers scheduled to compete for CMU this week:
 
Men (4): Isaiah Cheeks, Jax Juarros, David Roethlisberger, Dawson Wilson
Women (5): Talia Datilio, Juli Holt, Jenna Hurley, Mimi Licht, Kenya Meyer
 
The Mavericks contingent will be competing against divers from Air Force, Arizona State, BYU, California Baptist, Colorado State, Denver, Northern Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming.   CMU is the only NCAA Division II squad in the otherwise Division I field.
 
A total of 38 women and 25 men have currently been entered as of Tuesday afternoon.
 
How to Follow
 
Air Force will have a live stream of the meet on their YouTube channel (@AF_Falcons).  The stream will pop up on the YouTube page once the event goes live.
 
Live results will also be available through DiveMeets.com at https://secure.meetcontrol.com/divemeets/system/meetinfoext.php?meetnum=9801
 
A daily recap will also be posted on www.cmumavericks.com each day.
 
In Search of Scores
 
Three Maverick divers in Isaiah Cheeks, Jax Juarros and Jenna Hurley have already secured qualification for the NCAA Division II Pre-Championship Qualification meet on Mar. 12, which will determine the diving field of 22 women and 18 men for the official championships, which begin later that evening.
 
Six other Mavericks in Aiden Coon, Wyatt Hermanson, Ty Mitton and David Roethlisberger, Mimi Licht and Kenya Meyer are half-way to that point and are now in search for the second of two needed championship qualifying scores.  Four of those Mavs in Mitton, Roethlisberger, Licht and Meyer are expected to compete this weekend.
 
Qualification procedures for the NCAA Division II Championships changed last year and now require divers to set two championship scores at two different meets, one of which is from a 6-dive event and another from an 11-dive format competition.
 
The RMAC Championship preliminaries will be contested over 11 dives.  The eight finalists will repeat their 6-optional dives and carry forward the score from the five compulsory dives.
 
The Mavs are also hosting a last-chance qualification meet on Feb. 24.
 
The 6-dive NCAA Division II qualifying standards that the Maverick are gunning for are:
 
Men's 1m (285)
Men's 3m (295)
Women's 1m (255)
Women's 3m (265)
 
Diver of the Week honors
 
The Maverick men have combined to win five of the six RMAC Diver of the Week awards thus far this season with redshirt senior Isaiah Cheeks claiming a league-high three of those in Weeks 2, 6 and 9.  He now has nine such honors in his career.  Freshman teammate Jax Juarros has receive two honors in Weeks 5 and 7.  No awards were given in Week 1, 3 and 8.
 
The Maverick women have also combined to win four of the six women's awards given this year with freshman Jenna Hurley winning a league-high three in Week 1, 5 and 7.  Kenya Meyer received the Week 6 award, the first of her career.  No Diver of the Week awards were given in Weeks 3 and 4.
 
Another set of awards are set to be announced on Wednesday based upon results last week, when the Mavs did not compete.
 
Last Time Out
 
The Mavericks were last in action along with their swimming counterparts at the BYU Tri-Meet on Jan. 19 and 20.  As a team, the Maverick swimming and diving program finished second behind BYU and Air Force in both team scoring chases.
 
Individually, the Mavs had four different diving leaders in the four events.
 
Isaiah Cheeks finished third amongst 13 divers in the men's 1-meter while Jax Juarros took fourth out of 15 on the 1-meter, one spot ahead of Cheeks.  On the women's side, Jenna Hurley placed fourth out of 12 on the 3-meter while Kenya Meyer placed sixth out of 13 on the 1-meter board.
 
Up Next
 
The RMAC Championships will begin on Tuesday, Feb. 13, although the first diving event (women's 1-meter) will not be held until Wednesday, Feb. 14.    The men will then contest the 3-meter next Thursday (Feb. 15).  The women will contest the 3-meter on Friday (Feb. 16) and the 1-meter on the final day of the championships (Saturday, Feb. 17).
 
The preliminary round of each of the four events will begin at 2 p.m. on their respective day.  The top eight divers will then contest the finals during the evening championship sessions, which begin with swimming events at 6 p.m. on each of those four evenings.
 
Tickets for the RMAC Championships are on sale through the championship website.