AUBURN, Ala. – Alison Maillard and Conner Pruitt both added to their NCAA Championships event lists with top-8 finishes on Tuesday at the Zone B Diving Championships at Auburn's Martin Aquatics Center.
"It was another really strong day," Auburn diving coach Jeff Shaffer said.
Maillard scored a 292.00 on her first list, which qualified her fourth out of prelims. She then upped her score to a 304.45 in finals to finish with a cumulative 12-dive score of 596.45, which placed her third and ensured her two events at next week's NCAA Championships in Austin.
"Alison was really consistent," Shaffer said. "The one dive she missed in both lists was her reverse two-and-a-half. In the prelims she had great top and went over and in the finals she wasn't as strong, over-corrected and got out early. It's a dive she needs to step up and hit to final at NCAAs. Her other dives were really strong, so it's encouraging."
Maillard had earned a NCAA Championship Invitation on Monday when she placed third on the 3-meter and needed only a Top 12 finish on Tuesday to add the event to her list.
Pruitt, who earned his invite on Monday by way of a sixth-place finish on the 1-meter, needed to finish Top 12 as well to add the 3-meter to his NCAA event list. The Opelika native was eighth in prelims with a 351.20 and then eighth again in finals with a 376.00, which was just over two points below his personal best of 378.08 from the Florida dual meet.
"Conner did another great job," Shaffer said. "I would have liked to see him look at his last entry, his double-out, to be in seventh but that gives our Zone an opportunity to get one more diver in and he still gets to dive 3-meter at NCAAs, and that was the goal."
Logan Andrews scored a personal best 346.55 during the finals of the 3-meter and finished 13th overall with a 673.45. He had qualified 16th with a 326.90.
"Logan was really consistent," Shaffer said. "As I've told him all along we need to make the corrections that are going to clean up his entries and then he's going to compete with the rest of them."
The competition concludes on Wednesday with the platform competitions. The women's prelims begin at 10 a.m. CT while the men's is scheduled to start at 2:15 p.m.
To advance to the NCAA Championships on the women's side, a diver must place either top-9 on the 1-meter, top-8 on the 3-meter or top-6 on the platform. If they fall into one of those categories, they must then place top-12 on the other boards to compete it as well at the NCAA Championships. For the men, they must finish top-6 on the 1-meter, top-7 on the 3-meter or top-9 on the platform. The same top-12 finish applies to them as well.
Admission to the Zone Diving Championships is free.
Live scoring is available on Divemeets.com.
The 2019 NCAA Women's Swimming and Diving Championships will be held March 20-23 at the Jamail Texas Swimming Center on the University of Texas campus at Austin. The men's championships are the following week at the same venue.
Remaining Zone B Diving Championships Schedule
Wednesday, March 13
10 am – Women's platform prelims (32 divers)
Noon – Women's platform finals (18 divers)
2:15 pm – Men's platform prelims (30 divers)
4:15 pm – Men's platform finals (18 divers)
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