COLLEGE STATION, Texas - University of New Orleans divers Jonathan Field and Johnny DeMaine will compete in the NCAA Zone D Regional Championships this Friday and Saturday at the Texas A&M Student Recreational Center Natatorium.

Competing in both the 1-meter and 3-meter diving events, Field and DeMaine will first contest the 3-meter event on Friday at 3 p.m. with preliminaries and should they qualify, finals at 5 p.m. On Saturday, the two will participate in the 1-meter preliminaries at 11 a.m. with finals scheduled for a 1 p.m. start.

At the regional competition, each of the approximately 24 divers in each event, will perform six preliminary dives. The top 18 divers advance to the finals, where they will perform six additional dives that make up the aggregate score.

The competition, which will also included competitors from Minnesota, Texas, LSU, Iowa, Wisconsin, Missouri and host Texas A&M, will send eight divers to the NCAA Championships. The eight national participants are determined based off composite results from the 1-meter, 3-meter and platform events.

Field and Demaine, who are the first UNO male divers to qualify for NCAA regionals and the first of any gender since Natalie Bourgeois in 1985, qualified for the weekend based on their in-season performances.

Both divers hit their qualifying marks at the Delta State Christmas Invitational with DeMaine surpassing the 300 point qualifying standard in the 1-meter with a 306.65 and Field posting a 349.80 in the 3-meter, well ahead of the 320 standard.

The two divers continued their success through the end of the season as DeMaine finished second at the Sun Belt Conference Championships in the 1-meter with Field accomplishing the same task in the 3-meter event.

Two of the more accomplished members of the swimming and diving program in school history, DeMaine has earned four SBC Diver of the Week honors over two seasons with Field earning three of his own.

"I am proud of how they performed this season and at the Sun Belt meet," said UNO diving coach Richard Marschner. "Now, they will get a chance to perform against some of the top competition in the country and this will be a good opportunity as the two develop as divers."

Live results of the competition will be available at https://secure.meetcontrol.com/divemeets/system/meetinfoext.php?meetnum=797

2010 Zone D Regional Schedule of Events

Friday, Mar. 12, 2010 - Men's 3-meter competition
Prelims, 3 p.m. & Finals, 5 p.m.

Saturday, Mar. 13, 2010 - Men's 1-meter competition
Prelims, 11 a.m. & Finals, 1 p.m.