ISU divers Sarah Nelson and Jessica Henderson will again take the pool for the Zone D Diving Championships Thursday in Iowa City.

“It’s really the best of the best,” said diving coach Jeff Warrick. “Obviously … the NCAA championships are the real best, but our zone is super competitive.”

The Zone Diving Championships are split up into five zones based on the region. Divers on the East Coast will compete in Zone A; Southeast Conference and Atlantic Coast Conference in Zone B; most of the Big Ten schools in Zone C; most the Midwest schools in Zone D; and West Coast schools in Zone E.

“Only 12 divers from our zone are going to go to the NCAA championships,” Warrick said. “It’s definitely going to be a challenge to be one of those 12 divers in our zone, but I’m really looking forward to how Sarah and Jessica compete. We will see what happens.”

There are three days of competition beginning with the 1-meter, with the 3-meter on day two and the platform dive on day three. The top 12 divers will go to the NCAA tournament.

“Everyone is going to be trying to do their best,” Nelson said. “Everyone wants that ticket to the NCAA meet.”

Last season, Nelson was able to qualify for Zone D, where she placed 17th on the 1-meter, 30th on the 3-meter and 16th on platform.

“[Nelson’s] just trained really hard, she’s dedicated and really living the lifestyle of a top athlete,” Warrick said. “She’s a senior; she’s been doing this a long time, and whether it’s sports or music or anything the more hours you put into something the more of an expert you can be in it.”

This will be Henderson’s first trip to zones in her young career. She was close to qualifying last year, falling short of the score needed to qualify with 272.93 points, 7.07 shy of the qualifying score.

“I feel like I definitely stepped up from last year,” Henderson said. “I feel like last year was definitely a learning experience. I got close to making zone last year but didn’t really know how to put it together.”

Nelson and Henderson have been the top divers for Iowa State virtually the entire season and will aim to continue their consistency against the best competition to date.

“Obviously we want to qualify for the NCAA Championships,” Warrick said. “But what I want to do is look individually at each one and see what has been their high score for the season and see if the cab exceed that and see where those results compare to the other divers.”

The three-day competition is set to begin on Thursday in Iowa City.