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BLACKSBURG - Thirteen participants from the Virginia Tech men’s swimming & diving team will compete for their fourth-straight top-20 team finish in the 2015 NCAA Championships at the Campus Recreation & Wellness Center in Iowa City, Iowa, beginning on Thursday, March 26, and ending on Saturday, March 28.

A few weeks ago the H₂Okies earned a third-place team finish at the ACC Championships after winning six medals and finishing in the top-five of 13 events. Tech swimmers secured two NCAA automatic qualifying times and 37 NCAA B-cut times.

Robert Owen is set to race in both the 400 IM and the 200 back at NCAAs. He set a new school record in the 400 IM at ACCs when he swam an automatic qualifying time of 3:41.79 to win gold. A day after the ACC meet, Owen swam in a long-course pool for Olympic trials qualifying, where he swam the third-fastest American 200m back time to qualify for the trials. His mark of 1:58.58 is the eighth-fastest time in the world for 2015.

Brandon Fiala will race in the 200 IM, an event where he too set a school record at ACCs. His time of 1:43.97 earned him the gold medal. Tech’s 800 free relay team grabbed an automatic-qualifying time in their bronze-medal finish at ACCs.

For the first time in program history, Tech qualified four male divers to the championships in their zone diving qualifying event. Last year’s honorable-mention all-american in the platform, Thomas Shinholser, automatically qualified for the platform, 1-meter and 3-meter after taking third in all the events. Logan Stevens finished second in the platform and seventh in the 3-meter to automatically qualify, and sixth in the 1-meter to earn an at-large bid. Kyle Butts automatically qualified in the 3-meter and the platform and added an at-large bid in the 1-meter. Mauro Castro-Silva, in his first season as a college diver, punched his ticket to all three events with two seventh-place finishes and one fifth-place finish.

Each day’s swimming prelims will begin at 11 a.m. with diving prelims beginning at 1:45 p.m. The finals will start at 7 p.m.

Thursday’s prelims will include the following events in this order: 200 free relay, 500 free, 200 IM, 50 free, 400 medley relay. 1-meter diving will begin at 1:45 p.m.

Live results for the swimming events will be available here, and live results for the diving events will be available here.

ESPN3 will carry the finals on Friday and Saturday, and Hawkeyesports.com will stream all other sessions here.

Visit the championship page for more information about the meet, including a schedule of events, ticket information, travel information, parking, etc.

NCAA Participants:
Jake Ores (1650 free)
Morgan Latimer (200 fly, relays)
Owen Burns (100 free, 200 free, relays)
Brandon Fiala (200 IM, relays)
Robert Owen (400 IM, 200 back)
CJ Fiala (Relays)
Michal Szuba (Relays)
Collin Higgins (Relays)
Lucas Bureau (Relays)
Thomas Shinholser (1-meter, 3-meter, platform)
Logan Stevens (1-meter, 3-meter, platform)
Kyle Butts (1-meter, 3-meter, platform)
Mauro Silva (1-meter, 3-meter, platform)

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