Junior Heath Ogawa finished first off both boards at the Region 1 Diving Championships at the University of Chicago over the weekend to earn a spot in the field at the 2018 NCAA Division III Championships March 21-24.
Ogawa's 523.90 points in Friday's 1-meter competition were 67.50 more than the runner-up from Albion College and the second-highest score in any of the four regional meets. His most productive dive was his ninth, a reverse two-and-a-half somersault in the tuck position that earned 61.90 points. He also received at least 50 points on five other attempts, including his last two.
While Ogawa is now a three-time qualifier for the national meet, Forester sophomore Lizzie Johns was making her first appearance at the regional competition and placed 17th off the 3-meter board on Friday. She tallied 312.30 points overall with a high of 40.95 on her ninth attempt, an inward one-and-a-half somersault in the pike position.
The women competed first both days and Johns finished in the top half of the field in Saturday's 1-meter event. She placed 10th out of the 22 competitors with 370.55 points. She had one of the top seven scores in the field in five of the last six rounds and exceeded 40 points in four of those dives.
Ogawa won Saturday's 3-meter competition with 512.50 points, 52.25 more than the second-place diver and the sixth-best score in the country this weekend. He averaged nearly 52 points on his last seven dives with a score of at least 50 on six of them.
Ogawa, whose best finish at the national meet was eighth in the 1-meter event in 2016, will travel to Indianapolis, Indiana, for this year's NCAA Division III Championships at the IU Natatorium. The men's 3-meter competition will be conducted on Wednesday, March 21, and the 1-meter event will take place on Friday, March 23.