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ATHENS, Ga. - The Virginia Tech men’s and women’s diving teams completed the first day of competition at the University of Georgia Fall Invitational Friday night, led by Kaylea Arnett, Ashley Buchter and Logan Stevens, who all earned top-five finishes.

“The competition was very strong here tonight,” head diving coach Ron Piemonte said. “For us to put three men and three women into the top-eight finals in the first day is quite a great accomplishment. Kaylea Arnett and Ashley Buchter were really solid on the 3-meter to get us a really good start. It was a very difficult one-meter meet for the men so to get those three guys in the finals was great.”

For the women, Arnett and Buchter were the top finishers, taking second and third in the 3-meter diving event. Arnett scored 331.65 and Buchter posted 318.70.

Kelli Stockton finished in the seventh spot, scoring 284.55. Emma Villarreal finished tenth, notching a score of 281.25, and Katie Bean took sixteenth, scoring 219.25.

Among a field which included No. 2 Georgia, No. 5 California, No. 6 Auburn, No. 9 Virginia, No. 15 Penn State and No. 19 UCLA, the H₂Okies had five divers finish in the top sixteen. No other team had more than two divers in the top sixteen.

For the ninth-ranked men’s squad, Logan Stevens was the top finisher, taking fifth in the one-meter with a score of 307.05. Behind him, Mauro Castro-Silva took sixth with a score of 294.85. One spot past Castro-Silva, Thomas Shinholser finished seventh with a score of 294.40.

Kyle Butts posted a score of 308.65, the fifth-highest score of the finals, but he finished in the ninth spot because only the top-eight preliminary finishers can finish in the final top-eight final spots. Jack Gigliotti finished 13th for the H₂Okies, scoring 253.85.

Like the women’s event, the H₂Okies' five top-sixteen finishers in the men's event were the most from any team.

Competition continues tomorrow at 11:30 a.m. with the preliminaries for the men’s 3-meter and the women’s 1-meter. Finals competition will commence at 5:30 p.m. Live Stats will be available here.

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