Chelsea Shortall was named California Baptist University assistant women's water polo coach in 2012. The Lancers have finished five seasons as a top-25 ranked team in the NCAA and secured three top-four finishes in the Golden Coast Conference with Shortall.
In 2025, Coach Shortall helped the Lancers to a 12-16 record, including a 3-4 mark in GCC play. CBU was 6-4 in their home pool and posted a pair of ranked victories over #19 CSUN and #18 San Diego State. The win over SDSU was the program's first since 2001 and the first ever since the Lancers joined the Gold Coast Conference. CBU was ranked as high as #22 in the CWPA national polls during the season. The Lancers set the single-game program record for goals in a single game in 2025, netting 28 against Redlands at The Joust Tournament at the Lancer Aquatics Center. CBU finished 5th in the GCC standings and would fall to SDSU in the quarterfinals and APU in the 5th Place match to place 6th.
In 2024, Coach Shortall helped the Lancers to an 11-19 record and a 3-4 conference mark. The three conference victories were tied for the most since 2015 and the team's five home wins were the most since 2019. CBU finished 5th in the conference during the regular contest before falling in the 5th Place Match in the GCC Tournament to Azusa Pacific.
In 2023, the Lancers finished 15-19 overall, including an impressive 11-6 neutral record. CBU went a perfect 4-0 at the Tina Finali Invitational in Thousand Oaks and 3-1 at the Indiana Classic in Bloomington. CBU also defeated Santa Clara in the GCC Tournament in the seventh place game to earn its second straight season with a postseason victory.
CBU finished four-straight seasons (2018-21) as an NCAA top-25 ranked team, with a program-best No. 17 ranking in 2021. The Lancers finished a team-best third place in the GCC in 2016. Overall, the team has a 162-135 record with Shortall on staff.
Shortall is also the USA Water Polo Assistant Coach for the Women's Development National Team and the head coach for USA's SOPAC Zone in the Olympic Development Program (ODP). She's a veteran coach in ODP, and was named the Top Coach of an ODP Cadet Team at the 2017 ODP National Championships on March 10th, 2017. Less than two weeks later, Shortall accepted a position with the USA Youth Women's National Team as an assistant coach. The squad went 8-0 and won gold at the UANA Youth Pan American Championship in July 2017.
The Lancers have gone on to earn 19 All-American and 25 All-GCC awards under Shortall, while four went on to play professionally overseas. CBU also produced the 2016 Player of the Year and 2018 Newcomer of the Year in the GCC.
A former center in college, Shortall's specialty is working with the Lancers' two-meter players. One of those centers, Hannah Evans, was voted the NCAA Division II Player of the Year by the Association of Collegiate Water Polo Coaches two years in a row (2015-16).
Academically, CBU has been elite with Shortall. The team has produced top five team GPAs in the NCAA four times, including the top mark in all of Division I and second best in the country overall with a 3.61 in 2019. The Lancers have accumulated a total of 211 all-academic awards along the way, with 119 at the national level from the Association of Collegiate Water Polo Coaches and 92 from the GCC.
A former player for CSUN, Shortall previously spent time as a coach for Foothill Water Polo Club and Chino High School. During her career as a Matador, Shortall (then Curran) scored 95 goals (10th most in CSUN program history) and tallied 44 assists and 43 steals. Her 196 ejections drawn is the second highest total in program history. As a 2008 sophomore, she earned ACWPC All-American honorable mention after scoring 36 goals, including a career-high five in an 11-10 overtime win over Indiana. She also was named the team's Offensive Player of the Year.
Shortall graduated from CSUN with a bachelor's of arts in psychology in 2011. She completed her master's degree in gerontology from the University of La Verne. She married CBU's Director of Athletics Communications Andrew Shortall in December 2017. The couple welcomed their first child in 2020.
