ATLANTA – Senior Conner Pruitt punched his ticket to the NCAA Championships on Monday with a seventh-place finish on 1-meter at the NCAA Zone B Diving Championships.
Pruitt put together back-to-back lists of 326.65 and 338.60 to score a total 665.25 points and finish seventh. The top eight qualified for the NCAA Championships. This will be Pruitt's first NCAAs appearance since his freshman year in 2019. He qualified on all three events in 2020, but the meet was canceled due to COVID.
"I think it's great," Auburn head diving coach Jeff Shaffer said. "He wasn't as sharp as I would have liked, but that comes with the meet and the pressure. I think he'll relax and do a little better job tomorrow and be ready to go in a couple weeks for NCAAs."
Pruitt will dive 3-meter at Zones on Tuesday, and if he finishes in the top 12, he will add that to his event list at the NCAA Championships. He's not expected to dive platform this week.
It was a strong day for freshman Whit Andrus as well who advanced to the 1-meter finals in his NCAA Zones debut. Andrus was in 18th place after prelims but moved up to 13th with 327.55 in the final. He finished with a combined score of 612.50. Andrus and sophomore Hunter Kebler, who was 23rd in prelims, will join Pruitt on 3-meter on Tuesday.
The Tigers nearly had another NCAA qualifier Monday with Ashlynn Sullivan on 3-meter. The junior finished 11th in the final, one spot away from clinching her spot. Sullivan had two solid lists, scoring 294.65 in prelims and 286.95 in finals, for a combined score of 581.60.
Freshman Abigail Farrar was 33rd in prelims with a score of 256.65.
Farrar, Sullivan and junior Gretchen Wensuc will all close the meet Tuesday with platform.
"Abi's best event is platform, so she's ready to go and fired up for that," Shaffer said. "Gretchen didn't dive 3-meter. We just saved her for platform. That's her best event, so we'll see how that plays out tomorrow."
The men will start the day on 3-meter with prelims at 9 a.m. CT followed by finals. The women's platform is scheduled for 2:15 p.m. CT with finals immediately after.
