Coastal Collegiate Swimming Association (CCSA) – Women
- Monday, February 15 – Wednesday, February 17, 2021
- Liberty Natatorium – Lynchburg, VA (Eastern Time Zone)
- Defending Champion: Liberty (2x) (results)
- Live results
- Live Video Links here
- Championship Central
As day 1 of the 2021 CCSA Women’s Swimming & Diving Championships gets underway Monday in Lynchburg, Virginia, the first day’s heat sheets reveal a few surprises that could impact the team battle.
Typically one of the more competitive D1 conference championship meets, with this year expected to be another tight event, three big names from the conference front-runners won’t be scoring points.
For the two-time defending champions of Liberty, senior Emily Manly and senior Kiah Francis are both marked as ‘exhibition’ entries for this year’s meet. While both will be racing on Monday (Manly in the 500 free, Francis in the 200 IM), neither will be eligible to score points.
That’s significant because both were big scorers for the Flames last season. Manly scored 51 individual points and was a member of Liberty’s title-winning and conference record-setting 800 free relay, while Francis scored 59 points individually at last year’s meet.
Liberty’s top competitors from Florida Gulf Coast, a team that has never placed lower than 2nd in CCSA history, did not escape unscathed, however. The team will be without Hailey Jerew this week. Last season as a freshman, she scored a whopping 70 individual points at the CCSA Championships and swam on two FGCU relays.
The other biggest news to note from the first day’s heat sheets is that Incarnate Word sophomore Brenda Diaz Martinez, who was 3rd at last year’s CCSA Championship meet in the 500 free (4:54.90), appears to instead be swimming the 400 IM/1650 free/200 fly this week. That means a grueling day 3 mile/200 fly double. She was also 3rd in that 1650 free at last year’s CCSA Championship meet, with the defending champion Mikayla Herich of Liberty having exhausted her eligibility.
The CCSA has a 24-person travel limit for the meet. We also have an 18-person scoring roster. (swimmers full, divers 1/3). Anyone not on the scoring roster but on the travel roster can still swim. There are quite a few exhibitions from multiple programs.
Any idea why they are swimming exhibition?
My guess is they haven’t trained much at all for whatever reason and aren’t point contributors at this stage of the game.
I also don’t think it will be the last time you see this
Total guess though.
What would be the purpose of entering swimmers as exhibition? It’s not like they’d be losing a year of eligibility this year by competing?
They are travelling with their teams and swimming but above the 18 scoring swimmer max