ROCHESTER, N.Y. – Cortland senior Lance Meeson (Clifton Park/Shenendehowa) finished fourth out of 14 competitors on the 3-meter board during the opening day of action at the NCAA Division III Region 4 (Northeast/South) Men's Diving Regional, hosted by RIT.
 
Meeson finished with a score of 478.05 points, three and a half points better than fifth-place Ethan Weiss of TCNJ. Alfred State's Conor Compton finished first at 551.40 points, followed by Geneseo's Trent Makoweic (549.95) and RIT's Luke Albanese (491.80). The meet continues Saturday at noon with the 1-meter competition.
 
Two other Cortland divers - Kaz Kadota-Browner (Jericho) and Kevin Kohlhoff (West Islip) - each qualified for regionals during the season but were unable to compete due to injury.
 
Meeson recorded scores over 50 points on three of his dives, including a 52.50 on his second-to-last dive that included scores of 7.0 or better from six of the seven judges. For each dive the top two and bottom two scores among the seven are dropped and the remaining three are added together and multiplied by the dive's degree of difficulty (2.5 in that instance).
 
"I'm really pleased with Lance," said Cortland head coach Brian Tobin. "He had the best meet of his life when it mattered most. He beat Geneseo's third and fourth divers by a fair amount of points, and they both beat him at the SUNYAC Championships, and there are other strong divers here as well."
 
A total of five men will advance to the NCAA Division III Championships in Greensboro, N.C., March 20-23. Following Saturday's action, the first-place finishers from each board will be selected for nationals. If the same person wins both boards, only one allocation will be used for that athlete. Second-place finishers on both boards will then be chosen, again with allocations not used if athletes have already been chosen. The process continues with each finishing spot (third, fourth, fifth, etc.) until all five allocated spots have been assigned. If there is one allocation left and two divers are in the same finishing spot but have not been chosen, the divers' combined scores on both boards will be used to determine the final spot.