CCSA Championships
- Gabrielson Natatorium, University of Georgia
- February 15, 2017- February 18, 2017
- Live Video:BigSouthSports.com/Watch
- Live Results On Meet Mobile: 2017 CCSA Swimming and Diving Championships (Name on Meet Mobile)
Night 1 of the CCSA Championships kicked off with the UMBC men and the Florida Gulf Coast University women looking to defend their titles once again in Athens, GA.
In the first event of the night, the men’s 800 Free Relay, UMBC took home the opener and narrowly missed the conference record in the process. The team of Illia Rattsev, Ahmed Wahby, Nikola Trajkovic, and Gregor Spoerlein posted a time of 6:30.95, just off the record of 6:30.37 set by the Retrievers in 2014. University of the Incarnate Word and Gardner Webb University finished in 2nd and 3rd with times of 6:32.71 and 6:39.76 respectively.
The second event of the night, the women’s 200 medley relay, was a bit of a surprise as Liberty University came out on top after top seeded Florida Gulf Coast University was disqualified. FGCU has won 7 of the last 8 titles with their only loss coming in 2014 to Liberty in a similar scenario in which Liberty was able to grab the title because of DQ’s of FGCU relays. Nonetheless, the Flames team of Victoria Tschoke, Prudence Rooker, Brittany Weiss, and Rachel Hoeve put up a time of 1:39.32 to take the first women’s race of the night. Georgia Southern finished comfortably in 2nd at 1:42.14, and Campbell University just out touched Gardner Webb by seven one hundredths of a second for the final podium spot at 1:44.23.
Editor’s note: FGCU time trialed the 200 medley relay later in the evening, but missed the NCAA Automatic Qualifying Time by .06 seconds.
In the men’s 1M Diving, Florida Atlantic Junior Ryan McIntire put up an impressive 398.35, followed by Dawson Martinez (Incarnate Word) at 350.35, and Elijah Wright (UMBC) 325.10.
On the women’s 3m board the Eagles picked up crucial points after the DQ in the medley going one two. Senior Ashley Wright picked up the win and fellow classmate Mikaela Buening snagged the second spot with scores of 297.05 and 295.65 respectively. Kimberly Foster from Incarnate Word followed up in 3rd with a score of 278.35.
The final men’s event of the night, the 200 Medley Relay saw the team of Connor Bos, Jordan Mintz, Tyler Gomez, and Hal McKay from Gardner-Webb University win in a time of 1:27.66 just off of the conference record of 1:27.52 set in 2014 by Incarnate Word. Old Dominion battled it out with UMBC for the second spot and touched in at 1:29.21, while the Retrievers finished in 1:29.32.
In the final event of the night, the women’s 800 Free Relay, the FGCU ladies got some redemption with a win from the team of Hannah Burdge, Barbara Caraballo, Linda Shaw, and Gracie Redding in a time of 7:15.54. FGCU and Liberty pulled away from the field early, but in the end FGCU was able to get their second top podium spot of the night. Liberty followed just under a second behind in 7:16.50, and Georgia Southern finished in 3rd with a time of 7:27.86.
Team Scores
Men:
- UMBC- 187
- Old Dominion University- 166
- Florida Atlantic University- 162
- University of the Incarnate Word- 159
- NJIT- 156
- Gardner-Webb University- 118
- Howard- 94
- VMI- 88
Women:
- Incarnate Word- 216
- Georgia Southern- 174
- FGCU- 140
- Liberty- 120
- Gardner-Webb- 102
- Campbell- 102
- UNC-Asheville- 98
- University of North Florida- 92
- Howard- 84
- VMI- 40
Wow the SEC meet has turned off the mechanism…see article on SwimSwam…should go for all conference champs as well….
The FGCU girls almost matched their A cut DQ time in a time trial a little later in the evening, but their time trial was just short. Looking at their splits they should be able to make an A cut in this event at the least.