March 24, 2006

ATLANTA - University of Missouri senior diver Evan Watters (San Antonio, Texas / MacArthur HS) finished in 26th place in the prelims of the men's 3-meter diving at the NCAA Men's Swimming & Diving Championships, held Friday afternoon at the Georgia Tech Aquatics Center.

Watters, who on Thursday became the first Mizzou men's diver to earn All-America honors with a 12th-place showing on the 1-meter board, struggled early on in Friday's competition. After averaging 5.0's on an inward 2-1/2 somersault to open his day, he averaged 2.5's and 4.0's on his next two dives - an inward 3-1/2 and back 2-1/2, respectively, to fall down the leaderboard.

He rebounded on his fourth dive with his best score of the day, averaging 6.5's on a reverse 2-1/2. Watters wrapped up the day averaging 5.5's on his final two dives, a forward 3-1/2 and a twisting forward 2-1/2.

"Today was a rough event for Evan. Ever since the first practice this morning, he had trouble getting things going," said Head Diving Coach Jamie Sweeney. "He still managed to hit the reverse 2-1/2, which was good. It's pretty hard for any diver to put three events together against this kind of a field. Just to be diving here is a feat in and of itself. I had a feeling he might have some rough going one of the three days; it's just hard to know ahead of time which day that's going to be. But we'll be able to come back tomorrow and compete on the platform, and we're looking forward to it."

Watters will wrap up his collegiate diving career on Saturday on the 10-meter platform. Prelims begin at 1:30 p.m. ET (12:30 p.m. CT), with finals for the top eight divers starting at approximately 7 p.m. ET (6 p.m. CT). Live scoring, results and much more is available on Georgia Tech's website at www.ramblinwreck.com.