Gardner-Webb Wins 2021 Men’s CCSA Championship

2021 Men’s CCSA SWIMMING AND DIVING CHAMPIONSHIPS

• Friday, February 19- Sunday, February 21
• Liberty Natatorium in Lynchburg, Va
• Defending Champion: Incarnate Word men (3x), Liberty women (2x)
• 2020 Resuts
• psych sheets
• Live Stream
• Live Results 
• Championship Central

The third day of the 2021 Men’s CCSA Championship featured a battle to the team title between FAU and Gardner-Webb. Without a diving event on Sunday, Gardner-Webb held an advantage over FAU that they never relinquished, finishing the day with the team title in hand. The victory broke Incarnate Word’s streak of 3-straight championship titles, which was already relinquished when the team had to pull out of this year’s competition due to extreme weather in Texas. 

Final Team Scores: 

1. Gardner-Webb’s 1059
2. FAU 984
3. Bellarmine University 623
4. Old Dominion 587

In spite of their victory, Gardner-Webb failed to win a single event during the final session of the meet. 

FAU kicked-off the day by narrowly winning the 400 freestyle relay ahead of Gardner-Webb. The team of Alec Peckmann, Jackson Kirk, Peter Tanners and Josh Fountain combined for a time of 2:59.43 to claim victory, with the Gardner-Webb team finishing second in 3:00.33.

Fountain, a senior, then went on to claim an individual victory in the 1650 freestyle, touching over 8 seconds ahead of the field in a time of 15:47.81. Notably, Gardner-Webb freshman Garrett Despres finished 2nd in a time of 15:55.55, dropping over 20 seconds off of his seed time. 

FAU got its third consecutive victory of the day in the 200 backstroke, where sophomore Kyle Douglas posted a time of 1:45.91 to come in 1st overall, cutting a half-second off of his seed time in the process. 

However, FAU’s streak was broken when Old Dominion junior Noah Wilkins out-touched the aforementioned Peckmann in the 100 freestyle. Wilkins finished in a time of 44.72, to Peckmann’s 45.15.

Old Dominion also got a victory via senior Peter Durisin, who swam to a final time of 1:59.13. With his performance, Durisin cut about a half-second off of his personal best of 1:59.72 that was set in 2017. 

In the final event of the meet, Bellarmine picked up its only first-place finish of the meet, with junior Matthew Sims crushing the field by almost a second in a time of 1:47.40. Sims’ time erased over 5 seconds off of his seed time coming into the meet, which stood at a 1:52.69.