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BUFFALO, N.Y. - The Virginia Tech men’s and women’s diving teams automatically qualified four divers to the NCAA Championships at the NCAA Zone A Diving Championships Monday at the Alumnia Arena Natatorium.

Kelli Stockton, Ashley Buchter and Kaylea Arnett all qualified for the NCAA women’s 3-meter competition by finishing within the top-seven for automatic qualification. Thomas Shinholser qualified on the men’s side in the 1-meter, finishing within the top-five for automatic qualification.

“Today was a really good start at zones,” head coach Ron Piemonte said. “We want to keep things rolling since there were a lot of good things done and there’s still a lot of diving left to do.”

Stockton finished first in the Zone-A competition, scoring 663.25 on 12 dives. Buchter punched her ticket with a sixth-place finish after scoring 610.95. Arnett rounded out the H₂Okie finals group, taking seventh with a score of 597.20.

Tech’s Katie Bean took 26th in the prelims with a score of 245.90 after six dives, and Emma Villarreal finished 40th in the prelims with a score of 224.65.

On the men’s side, Thomas Shinholser scored a spot at NCAAs with a third-place finish in the 1-meter after posting a score of 658.75. In the men’s 1-meter, only the top-five finishers receive automatic qualification. Logan Stevens, Mauro Castro-Silva and Kyle Butts all barely missed out on the automatic spots, finishing sixth, seventh and eighth, respectively.

Stevens, Castro-Silva and Butts could still receive at-large qualification for NCAAs in the 1-meter if they automatically qualify for either the 3-meter event or the platform. This year’s NCAA qualification allows Zone-A top-12 finishers to qualify for one event if they also earn an automatic qualification in another event. So if Stevens, Castro-Silva and Butts finish in the top-seven in one of the next two events, they will also qualify for the 1-meter since they were within the top-12 mark.

Action continues Tuesday at 12 p.m. with the women’s 1-meter and the men’s 3-meter. In this event, for both the men and the women, top-seven finishers will automatically qualify.

The event is free and open to the public.

Live results will be available here.

Schedule of remaining events:

Tuesday:
1-meter (women) - 12 p.m.
3-meter (men) - 12 p.m.

Wednesday:
Platform (women) - 11 a.m.
Platform (men) - 12:15 p.m.

For updates on Virginia Tech swimming & diving, follow the Hokies on Twitter Follow @VT_SwimDive