COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - The UNLV divers turned in a successful weekend at the Air Force Invitational this weekend on the campus of the Air Force Academy. The two-day invitational was held on Feb. 5 and 6.

Leading the way for UNLV was men's diver Lucas James, with a pair of sixth-place finishes, After placing fourth in the preliminaries with a score of 333, which is a NCAA Zone qualifying score, James would finish sixth overall after scoring 310.60 in the finals. He added a sixth-place score on the platform as well, 291.25. On the 3-meter, James scored 286.55 to place 11th.

Luke did great finishing 6th in both his events," said UNLV Diving coach Derek Starks. "He's setting himself up very well for conferences and zones."

The first event on the women's side was the 1-meter. Alyssa Arnett paced the Rebels, placing seventh in the preliminaries out of 49 with 262.25 points. In the finals she finished ninth with the score of 241.40. Michele Serra finished 16th with 236.60 points followed by freshman Shelby Steiger (19th, 236.00), sophomore Mykayla Fielding (24th, 225.50) and freshman Chrysoula Gatsios (39th, 198.95).

On the women's platform. Serra was the highest finisher placing 14th out of 41 women 194.70 points. Arnett posted a season best score of 187.85 to place 19th. It was the first collegiate platform appearance for Steiger, Fielding and Gatsios who placed 35th (152.85), 37th (147.50) and 39th (141.05) respectively. Serra was also the highest scorer on the 3-meter as well, turning in a score of 256.20 to place 12th overall. Fielding was 22nd with a score of 238.35, while Steiger was 35th (216.75) and Gatsios placed 43rd (196.90).

"I think everyone did very well for themselves this weekend," said Starks. "Our women have especially made gains, if this were last year's conference, three of our women would've been in the top 16 to score team points on 1 meter, two on platform. I am very proud of how they handled themselves as competitors today and more confident in the dives we've chosen for these last few meets.

"I'm very proud of Michele for making the finals in her event and making a season best for herself, she is also posing to do well at conferences. Myka made an amazing comeback after some tough misses, we know exactly what we need to train to do much better next week. I had to withdraw Alyssa due to an injury, but she's already qualified to zones so the rest was more beneficial than pushing through. Chrysoula and Shelby both did well for themselves, both performing fairly new dives and doing them well for as long as they've been doing them. I'm very excited to see how they perform at conferences in the upcoming weeks."

The next action for the UNLV divers will be at the Mountain West Women's Swimming and Diving Championships, held Feb. 17-20 in College Station, Texas. James will compete in the WAC Championships on Feb. 24-27 in Houston, Texas.