By the time night falls on Saturday, four divers from the Stanford women’s team will know if they are in the NCAA Championships. Until then, those four divers will compete at the NCAA Zone E Diving Championships in Oklahoma City, this Thursday through Saturday.

Senior Cassidy Krug, junior Katie Lampe, sophomore Sarah Ohr and freshman Shana Karp hope that their performances this weekend will earn them the chance to compete at the NCAA Swim and Diving Championships, which take place in Minneapolis, Mar. 8-10.

The divers will go up against athletes from 17 other schools in the Western region, including Pacific-10 Conference competitors Arizona, Arizona State, California, UCLA and Southern California this week. The meet starts on Thursday with the three-meter event, followed by the one-meter on Friday and the platform event on Saturday. NCAA championship qualifiers will be announced at the conclusion of Saturday’s events.

The Stanford divers have not competed since the Pac-10 diving championships, which took place Feb. 8-10.

“The team dove well at Pac-10s,” said Stanford head diving coach Rick Schavone. “but that’s not necessarily an indication of what’s coming up next. They have to go into this meet and dive just as well.”

Five-time All-American Krug is the top contender for the Cardinal. Earlier this month, Krug was named Women’s Diver of the Meet in the Pac-10 diving championships after she took first place in both the three-meter and one-meter events. Krug is hoping to improve on her Pac-10 performance at this weekend’s meet.

“My dives were pretty good at Pac-10s,” she said. “It was a good step to prepare me and help me focus on my competition, but it wasn’t the performance that’s going to win NCAAs.”

Deservedly, Krug has garnered a lot of attention recently in the Stanford sports scene. Along with men’s diver sophomore Dwight Dumais, she was featured as a guest on the Inside Stanford Sports Radio show on Monday night.

“I’m really glad that smaller sports like diving are getting a chance to get out there and get in front,” Krug said.

Alongside Krug, Lampe is the other frontrunner for the Cardinal. At the Pac-10 Championships, she reached the finals in all three diving events: the three-meter, one-meter and platform. She finished fifth in the three-meter with 292.60 points, sixth in the one-meter with 258.80 points and fourth in the platform with 242.85 points.

“Katie has never made the NCAA championships, so I have my fingers crossed for her,” Schavone said. “She had a great Pac-10 meet, and she is good enough to go to the national championship.”

Expectations are a little bit different for the younger divers. Ohr did not make the finals at the Pac-10 meet, but had her best performance in the three-meter event when she finished ninth in the preliminaries. Karp’s top dive was her third-place showing in the platform event.

“I’m not putting a lot of pressure on Shana [Karp],” Schavone said. “She’s just a freshman, and this is her first NCAA regional competition, so I really just want her to enjoy the meet.”

Even though Krug is Stanford’s top-ranked diver, she is confident in her teammates’ abilities.

“There’s a good chance that some of the other divers will do well in this meet and make it to the NCAA Championships in Minneapolis,” she said. “All year we’ve been practicing dives and correcting things, and now we are ready for the national level.”

After a tough season of physical training, Krug admits that most of the divers’ remaining preparation will take place at the mental level.

“Rich [Schavone] always says that at meets we just have to dance with the boy that we took to the dance — in competition there is very little we can change, and we just have to go out there and dive,” she said.

Schavone agrees that his divers are ready to perform on the national scene.

“The divers have been resting a little more and putting more quality in their training,” he said. “They are feeling strong, feeling rested, and now it’s game time.”