AUBURN, Ala. – The Auburn men and women were both in action Thursday on the second day of the Auburn Diving Invitational. The men competed on 3-meter while the women made their meet debut in the 1-meter event.
Conner Pruitt once again led the way for the Tigers on the men's side, earning another third-place finish with 409.55 points. It was a season-high score on 3-meter for the junior who also placed third in Wednesday's 1-meter competition. Pruitt also topped 400 in both the prelims and finals of the AU Fall Invitational last month.
Senior Logan Andrews and sophomore Skip Donald both placed in the top seven for the second straight day. Andrews finished sixth on 3-meter with 330.90 points while Donald took seventh with 322.50 points. It was a season high for Andrews.
"On the men's side, I was real pleased," Auburn head diving coach Jeff Shaffer said. "If you look at both the prelims and the finals, we were competitive. We're making some good corrections. We competed much better today.
"Conner broke 400 again. That's a solid score on 3-meter, and there's some room for improvement there as well. I was pleased with Logan's progress and Skip. Skip, Logan and Conner all had Zone qualifying scores, so that was a really strong performance."
The Auburn women, competing for the first time this week, had two place in the top 10 among a field of 17 divers from Auburn, LSU, North Carolina and South Carolina.
Sophomore Ashlynn Sullivan scored a team-high 249.10 points to finish eighth while freshman Maia Goldstein took ninth with 246.95 points. Goldstein's 249.15 points in prelims was a new career high. Fellow freshman Megan Ewoldt also set a career high (213.50) in finals.
"I thought the women did a decent job," Shaffer said. "They trained well this morning. The biggest thing in comparing them against the other competitors is really their strength and their ability to jump, and that's something that is going to take some time to develop."
The women will open Friday's session with the 3-meter event at 11 a.m. CT while the men will wrap up the meet on platform, beginning at 3 p.m. CT.
"Tomorrow is a strong day for us," Shaffer said. "I'm looking forward to see all five of our guys dive tower, and the women will be a little bit better on 3-meter."
Tigers compete better on Day 2 of AU Diving Invite
Freshman Maia Goldstein set a new career high in the 1-meter prelims with 249.15 points.