In the Record Books: Looking back at a breakout year for Liberty student-athletes

Multiple Liberty University student-athletes broke school and program records as individual and team competitors during the 2023-24 academic year. Here’s a roundup for NCAA Division I sports and Club Sports:

FOOTBALL

• The Flames became the first FBS team in the Commonwealth of Virginia to win 13 games and the first Liberty squad to complete an undefeated regular season.
• Just in its sixth season as an FBS program, the team’s fifth consecutive bowl bid was its first to a New Year’s Six bowl game, with a Liberty Athletics record 4.7 million viewers tuning in to watch the Flames take on Oregon in the Jan. 1 Fiesta Bowl.
• Offensively, Liberty shattered the program records for most rushing yards in a season (4,106), rushing yards per game (293.3), rushing touchdowns in a season (39), passing touchdowns in a season (32), total touchdowns in a season (73), points in a season (536), first downs in a season (348), offensive yards in a season (6,988), and offensive yards per game (499.1).
• Junior Kaidon Salter established a new program record for rushing yards in a season by a quarterback (1,089), passing touchdowns in a season (32), total touchdowns responsible for in a season (44), and total offensive yards (3,965).
• Placekicker Nick Brown set a program record for most extra points made (65).

FIELD HOCKEY

• The Lady Flames earned their first-ever at-large berth into the NCAA Division I Field Hockey Championship based on its 17-3 overall record, after advancing with autobids by winning the BIG EAST Championship titles the previous two seasons and the NorPac tournament crowns in 2013 and 2014.
• Graduate defender Bethany Dykema distributed a team-high 13 assists to become the program’s new career leader (47).
• Senior goalkeeper Azul Iritxity Irigoyen set a new Liberty record for best single-season goals-against average (0.93) and is now the program’s all-time leader in wins (60), shutouts (24), and goals-against average (1.09).
• The Lady Flames tied a program record for most NFHCA All-America selections with three as graduate defender Jodie Conolly earned first-team recognition and Dykema and Iritxity Irigoyen landed on the second team.

WOMEN’S SOCCER

• Liberty began the season with an 11-0 record to stretch its program-best unbeaten streak to 24 games dating back to Fall 2022. Junior goalkeeper Ainsley Leja, who posted 10 shutouts for the second year in a row, set the season record for lowest goals-against average (0.60).

WOMEN’S BASKETBALL

• Head Coach Carey Green won the 548th game of his career in the Nov. 6 season opener at the Liberty Arena, becoming the winningest coach in Liberty Athletics Department history. He now has 565 coaching victories and has led the Lady Flames to a program-record 14 conference titles and NCAA Division I Championship appearances.
• Freshman guard Asia Boone set a program record by becoming a nine-time CUSA Freshman of the Week.
• Junior guard Emma Hess sank a season-record 76 3-pointers, accounting for nearly one-third of the Lady Flames’ program-record 230 made from beyond the arc.
  

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SOFTBALL

• The Lady Flames set the program record for most wins over teams ranked in the Top 25 in a single season with six and ended the year with its highest-ever final ranking in the D1Softball Top 25 Poll (No. 23) after finishing at No. 25 in two of the previous three seasons. Junior outfielder Rachel Roupe, ranked 58th on Softball America’s top 100 players in the nation, set a single-season program record with 48 walks.

VOLLEYBALL

• The Lady Flames earned their first win over a Top 25 team in program history, Sept. 8 at No. 23 Hawaii. Junior Madison Blane set a program record for single-season attack percentage (.418) in the rally-scoring era (since 2001).

INDOOR TRACK & FIELD

• During her first indoor track & field season for the Lady Flames, sophomore Reese Webster eclipsed nine school records between the women’s 60- and 200-meter dash, ending the year with top times of 7.31 seconds in the 60 and 23.27 in the 200. Redshirt junior Katelyn Locker set a program record in the women’s 1,000 meters (2:45.61) and clocked a CUSA Championships meet-record 2:06.99 in the women’s 800 meters.
• Other Flames and Lady Flames Indoor Track & Field record-setting performances included redshirt junior Indea Cartwright in the women’s 60-meter hurdles (8.16), sophomore Omari Lewis in the men’s 60-meter dash (6.67), and the women’s distance medley relay team of Locker, freshman Maddy Merritt, sophomore Jessica Palisca, and redshirt junior Marie Hostetler (11:32.82).
• Senior John Hicks and redshirt sophomore Desmond Coleman combined to break Liberty’s men’s weight throw record three times with Hicks finishing the season as the record holder with his CUSA Championship-winning mark of 68-feet, 4.5 inches.
• As a team, Liberty’s men’s squad extended its conference winning streak to 27 consecutive seasons with its first CUSA title. That is the longest active streak at the NCAA Division I level and dates back to the inaugural Big South Championships in 1998.

OUTDOOR TRACK & FIELD

• Numerous mid-distance program records were set this spring, including Locker in the women’s 800 meters (2:04.46), redshirt sophomore Brendan Pitcher in the men’s 800 (1:48.26), and senior Kyle Harkabus in the men’s 1,500 (3:40.78).
• Lewis’ wind-aided time of 9.88 seconds in the 100-meter dash — the fastest in the world for 2024 at the time — Cartwright’s 100-meter hurdles time of 13.11 seconds, which broke her own program record, and sophomore Addilae Watts’ javelin throw of 161-8 helped Liberty sweep its first CUSA Championship titles May 10-12 in El Paso, Texas.
• The men’s team extended its nation’s longest active NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field championship streak to 17 (Big South – 2007-18, ASUN – 2019, 2021-23 and CUSA – 2024).
• At the NCAA Division I National Championships in Eugene, Ore., sixth-year senior Calli Doan earned her third All-America honor for the Lady Flames, concluding her career at Liberty with a 10th-place showing in the women’s steeplechase finals with a program-record time of 9:49.54.
• Katie Urbine cleared 14-1.25 on her first attempt in the women’s pole vault to match her Liberty freshman record, finishing 10th overall to become the first Lady Flame to earn NCAA Division I All-America honors as a freshman.
• Sophomore Paola Bueno bested her previous program record by 2 feet in the women’s hammer throw with a heave of 211-4 that placed her a program-best 11th nationally in that event.

SWIMMING & DIVING

• Kamryn Cannings set new program records in the 100-yard freestyle (48.72 seconds), 200 freestyle (1 minute, 45.67 seconds), and 100 butterfly (51.26) while fellow freshman Shannon Icard set a new program record score for platform diving (261.00).
• On the Club Sports scene, the Flames’ men swimming team repeated its program-best runner-up finish at the April 5-7 College Club Swimming National Championships in Indianapolis with a record-high 810 points, improving on last year’s program-best fifth-place combined showing by landing in fourth place overall despite not entering any female swimmers. Liberty set seven program records at that meet — six individual and one relay.
• Three of the individual records were set by freshmen — Thomas Hill, who broke Robert Boehme’s (’22) fast times in the 500-yard freestyle (4:34.05) and 1,000 free (9:33.39) and gold medal winner Andrew Baxter in the 200 backstroke (1:48.18), bettering the record set by Matthew Davidson (’23).
• Jonah Rhodenizer broke the program record set by two-time Guatemala Olympic Pentathlete Charles Fernandez (’20) in the 50 butterfly (22.97) and another established by fellow junior Trent Kolter the 100 fly (50.82) while sophomore Dillon Delaney topped Boehme’s 200 Individual Medley record in 1:55.31.
• Delaney also swam the second leg of Liberty’s record-setting 200 free relay, which placed third at nationals in 1:23.62, after freshman Connor Woods and before Kolter and sophomore Maximus Phillipps. They broke the record set at last year’s nationals, when the Flames established program records in all five relays.

SKIING & SNOWBOARDING

• Liberty’s men’s and women’s teams enjoyed a breakthrough season, becoming combined freestyle national champions at the USCSA finals at Lake Placid, N.Y., in early March. The men’s snowboarders claimed individual (junior Tate Gardner and senior Jesse Mast) and team titles in Rail Jam and Slopestyle for the first time in program history, and the women’s snowboarders landed a complete sweep atop the team podium, while also taking the Boardercross gold medal for the first time in program history. Liberty senior women’s skier Isabella Tinney swept individual gold medals in the Rail Jam and Slopestyle finals.

MEN’S WRESTLING

• Liberty claimed its 12th consecutive Mid-Atlantic Conference team championship, held for the first time at the Liberty Indoor Track Complex, and finished runner-up at both the NCWA National Duals in Iowa and the NCWA Grand Nationals in Louisiana, with graduates Josiah Murphy (235 pounds) and heavyweight Rick Weaver both becoming three-time individual national champions.

MEN’S LACROSSE

• The Flames, who finished ranked No. 3 in the MCLA Division I for the second year in a row after advancing to the national semifinals for the second straight time, had a record-high three players selected to the MCLA DI All-America team — senior middie Keaton Mohs, junior defender Conor Guiltinan, and junior middie Wil Geary. Mohs became the highest-scoring middie in program history (135 goals, 88 assists, 233 points) and tied former attack and current Assistant Coach Ryan Miller’s single-game record of 11 points with 5 goals and 6 assists in the 17-13 ALC Championship win over Tennessee. Miller (’16, 201G, 136A, 337 points) is still the program’s all-time leading scorer.

DISC GOLF

• Liberty’s men’s and women’s disc golf teams swept the singles titles in all four divisions (D1, D2, D3 men, D1 women) of the Flamethrower National Qualifier for the first time, with the women’s tandem of graduate Julia DiMartino and senior Maggie Presley going on to earn All-America honors at the College Disc Golf National Championships individually and as a team, capturing the D1 women’s national title.

HOCKEY

• For the first time in program history, all five of Liberty’s men’s and women’s hockey teams qualified for their respective national championships. The Division I women’s team’s ACHA-record five-season winning streak was snapped by Minot State in double overtime in the semifinals near St. Louis, where the DI men’s squad was ousted in the quarterfinals by eventual champion Adrian College. The DII men’s and women’s squads both narrowly missed advancing to the Final Four by finishing 2-1 in pool play, with the women recording their first two wins at the national level.

>> Follow the Flames’ and Lady Flames’ 20 NCAA Division I programs and 42 men’s and women’s Club Sports teams on the Athletics and Club Sports websites.