Liberty University junior Shannon Icard made history on March 21 by becoming the first diver from the school to compete at the NCAA Division I Women’s Swimming & Diving Championships. The event took place at the McAuley Aquatic Center in Atlanta, Georgia.
Icard’s participation marks a milestone for Liberty’s swimming and diving program, which has seen steady progress over its 15-year history. She competed in platform diving and finished with a score of 219.15, placing 34th out of 43 divers in the preliminaries. Junior Kamryn Cannings also represented Liberty, swimming in the 100 freestyle and tying for sixth in her heat with a time of 48.90 seconds, which placed her tied for 47th overall.
During the four-day meet, only the top sixteen competitors from morning preliminaries advanced to evening finals. In platform diving, Ellie Cole of Stanford led qualifiers with a score of 366.90, while it took a score of 294.75 to reach the A Final and 260.50 for the B Final. In the women’s 100 freestyle qualifying rounds, Anna Moesch and Sara Curtise from Virginia secured the top two spots.
Icard earned her spot at nationals after placing fifth on platform at last week’s NCAA Zone A Diving Championships in Annapolis, Maryland. Cannings holds Liberty’s top two all-time times in the NCAA Championships’ 100 freestyle event: her swim this year (48.90) and last year’s performance (48.77).
This year marks the tenth time that at least one Lady Flame has been selected to compete at nationals since the program began fifteen years ago. Previous All-America honorable mention finishers include Brye Ravettine (13th in 50 free, 2012) and Jess Reinhardt (10th in 100 fly, 2014). All competitors qualified for the cancelled 2020 championships were named All-Americans that year, including Payton Keiner.
Cannings now joins Keiner as one of only two Lady Flames to make three appearances at NCAA Division I Women’s Swimming & Diving Championships.
