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ANNAPOLIS, Md. - The Virginia Tech men’s and women’s diving teams wrapped up day one of the 2016 NCAA Zone A Championships with the men qualifying three divers for the NCAA Championships.

The men competed in the 3-meter event and the Hokies finished in third, fourth and fifth place as the top five divers secure qualification. Mauro Castro-Silva, Eduardo Castro-Silva and Ben Schiesl all had impressive days to qualify for the NCAA Championships. The women’s team had two divers compete in the 1-meter event.

“I'm really pleased with how the men dove today overall. Mauro has been very consistent for us and picked up a great third place finish. Eduardo had a couple tiny misses in the prelims but he was very solid in the finals to get fourth place, which is amazing. Ben Schiesl was a little shaky in the prelim and in 11th place heading into the finals but he dove exceptionally well as he moved all the way up to fifth place for a NCAA qualifying spot. That was really impressive for him to dive so well in the finals for that fifth place finish,” head diving coach Ron Piemonte said.

Both the preliminaries and the finals are added together for a total score at the Zone A Championships as opposed to dual meet scoring and the ACC Championships where the finals score stands alone.

Mauro finished with 712.65 points in third place, Eduardo had 700.70 points in fourth and Schiesl had 700.35 to finish in fifth and take the last NCAA Championships qualifying spot.

On the women’s side, Ashlynn Peters narrowly finished in sixth place with 529.30 points in the 1-meter event. Peters’ finish was good enough that if she is able to qualify for the NCAA Championships in either the 3-meter or the platform over the next two days, she will also qualify to compete in the 1-meter as well at the NCAA Championships.

Both the men and women will compete tomorrow beginning at noon for the men’s 1-meter event and the women’s 3-meter.

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