Liberty And Florida Gulf Coast Tie In Wild CCSA Championship
The Lady Flames swimming and diving team won its third straight Costal Collegiate Sports Association (CCSA) Championship Feb. 17, finishing as co-champions with Florida Gulf Coast (FGCU) in the first-ever tie in CCSA Championship history.
After competing in 20 events over a three-day span, the Lady Flames and FGCU finished with exactly 1,748.5 points, resulting in a rare tie and the crowning of two teams as CCSA co-champions. The Lady Flames swimming and diving program has now won four championship titles, with the first claimed in 2014 and the last three won consecutively in 2019, 2020 and 2021.
“It’s one in a billion,” senior swimmer Lindsey Cohee said about the tie with FGCU. “Like, how does that happen? There’s a 0.01 second difference between winning a championship and losing a championship.”
“We’re the best two programs in the conference,” Head Coach Jake Shellenberger said. “It’s fitting that in this crazy year 2020-2021 that we would tie (as) conference champions.”
With social distancing in effect, the Lady Flames were forced to watch the final championship event from the side as FGCU claimed first in the 400-meter freestyle relay. FGCU overcame an eight-point deficit to match the Lady Flames score.
Freshman diver Maddie Freece was one of the Lady Flames who had to watch FGCU swim in the second heat of the final event.
“It was nerve-wracking,” Freece said. “It was exciting at the same time though. Some people were just watching the scoreboard, waiting to see what (FGCU’s) splits were and what they were hitting it at. Other people were holding hands on the sidelines and watching the race.”
Close contests with the Florida Gulf Coast Eagles are no rarity for the Lady Flames in the CCSA Championship. In the last 12 years, Liberty and FGCU’s programs have been the only ones to win the conference title. This was FGCU’s first title crown since 2018.
However, Shellenberger is grateful for the consistent competition FGCU provides, especially during a season marked with COVID-19 related regulations, cancellations and uncertainty.
“That’s been our rivalry since we started our program 11 years ago,” Shellenberger said. “We’ve gone back and forth. There’s been some epic battles over the years, and this is just a snapshot of everything we’ve been through with the Eagles in the past 11 years.”
Liberty started off the championship contest with a strong first day showing Feb. 15, building an early lead of 15.5 points over FGCU. Freece became the first Lady Flame to win the three-meter dive. Her win captured the last event victory needed for Liberty to have a win in each event offered at the championship.
After a strong second day of competition including three event victories and 10 podium finishes, the Lady Flames went into the last day of competition with a 59-point lead. Senior Payton Keiner won her program-record sixth career CCSA individual title, winning the 100-meter free event.
The Lady Flames closed the last day of championship competition with 11 top-nine finishes, six podium finishes and two event victories. Keiner won her fourth straight 200-meter backstroke event, becoming the first Lady Flames swimmer and one of only three conference swimmers in history to win four CCSA titles in the same event.
Freece was named CCSA Most Outstanding Diver of the Meet after winning both the one-meter and three-meter dive. She joins fellow diver and current teammate Lauren Chennault, who was last year’s CCSA Co-Most Outstanding Diver of the Meet.
In a year when COVID-19 made even the possibility of a championship uncertain, winning the CCSA on a rare tie was a satisfying end for the Lady Flames.
“There’s been a lot of ups and downs,” Cohee said. “I’m really thankful just for the experiences and all the memories that we’ve made. All the training we’ve done, it all
paid off.”
“We have so many reasons why we shouldn’t have been able to perform as well as we did,” Freece said. “The fact that people were still swimming their best times and people were still getting personal best dive scores, it was all God. We’re really blessed that this was what God’s will intended for us this year.”
The Lady Flames swimming and diving team will finish out its season when it hosts the fourth-annual Liberty Last Chance Meet Feb. 26-27.
Sarah Tate is a Sports Reporter. Follow her on Instagram at @state2151.