All of Liberty's medalists at the NCTA Championships posed upon the podium after Sunday's Collegiate Cup.
Taekwondo team claims 12 medals at NCTA Championships near Boston
4/15/2025 1:29:00 PM | Taekwondo
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Three Liberty fighters struck gold in various color belt sparring divisions, including Julia Eesley who captured her second in three seasons.
Liberty University's taekwondo team experienced one of its most successful National Collegiate Taekwondo Association (NCTA) Championships in program history this past weekend, hosted by Northeastern University at the Royal Plaza Trade Center in Marlborough, Mass. The 22 Flames and Lady Flames student-athletes competing won a dozen medals in various belt and weight classes, including a first-ever Collegiate Cup gold.
Liberty 10th-year Head Coach Tom Childress lost his voice as he cheered and exhorted various fighters from their corners throughout the three-day tournament.
"We were yelling and getting them excited," said Assistant Coach Cameron Connelly, who covered for Childress for post-tournament media requests. "A lot of teammates would rally on the sidelines and split up between the rings if multiple matches involving Liberty competitors were going on at the same time. They had a lot of support, with plenty of parents and family members coming to watch the team compete as well."
Collegiate Cup Women's Sparring C Division gold medalists Katrina
McMillen, Taya Schreve, Kaileigh Lowry, and alternate Tori Lyons
The tournament concluded with the inaugural Collegiate Cup, highlighted by Liberty's Women's Sparring C Division team of senior lightweight Katrina McMillen, sophomore middleweight Taya Shreve, and junior heavyweight Kaileigh Lowry capturing a gold medal by defeating trios from MIT in the quarterfinals, Brown University in the semifinals, and Texas A&M in the championship match. Senior yellow belt Ricardo Huezo won a gold medal in Men's Sparring.
Individually, junior light/welterweight Julia Eesley claimed her second national title in three seasons with a gold medal in the red belt sparring competition, after winning a gold medal in blue belt in 2023 and silver in red belt in 2024. Senior light/welterweight Ricardo Huezo struck gold for the first time in his two seasons on the team in the men's yellow belt division.
Katrina McMillen won a bronze medal in Poomsae.
The NCTA competition started with McMillen securing a bronze medal in the Poomsae yellow belt division, marking the first time a Liberty student-athlete has earned a medal in forms since 2017. Freshman Nathan Norton nearly became the second but was eliminated in the semifinals of the men's white belt Poomsae competition.
Also in Saturday's sparring competitions, women's green belts Lowry, a light/welterweight, and senior middle/heavyweight Hannah Wharton claimed silver medals along with sophomore women's light/welterweight blue belt Khara Pastean.
Senior black belts Chyanne Armes and welterweight Joseph Kim both claimed bronze medals along with Norton, a light/welterweight, in men's white belt, graduate middle/heavyweight Tori Lyons in women's yellow belt, sophomore light/welterweight Emily Sloane in women's blue belt, and senior middle/heavyweight Paul Bearchell in men's red belt.
"Emily (Sloane) and Jackson Hale would have made it to (finals and) semifinals because they won their last matches, but they couldn't continue due to injury," Connelly said.
Also, in the Collegiate Cup, the Poomsae C1 Division team of McMillen, Lowry, and Wharton earned honorable mention after advancing to the round of 16 past the C2 team from Brown, which has a reputation for excelling in Poomsae.
Eesley and Varrati, who will test for their first-degree black belts on May 3, also advanced to the quarterfinal round of the Women's Sparring B Division on Sunday as did the Flames' Men's Sparring C Division quartet of Huezo, Knowles, and freshmen Fitzgerald and Maran.
Northeastern won the overall Collegiate Cup and the University of Texas at Austin defended its NCTA National Championship team title for the fifth time. Junior red belt Julia Eesley captured her second gold medal at the NCTA Championships, in red belt sparring after earning silver last year.
