Victim of deadly I

Lischwe went to Kirkwood High School. In an interview last year with a sports talk program, Lischwe explained that there were no girls water polo teams when she was in high school, so she played for a boys team in her youth. She went on to play Division 1 women’s water polo at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York.

Friends of Lischwe set up a fund Thursday afternoon to raise money for her family, and it had raised more than ,000 in the first six hours.

Candice Vorbeck, a water polo coach at the University of Hawaii, said Lischwe’s death is a huge loss for the water polo community. Lischwe’s passion for the sport was obvious, said Vorbeck, who played for Lischwe at the club level in St. Louis, then later worked with her as an assistant coach at McKendree.

Lischwe is survived by her husband and 3-year-old daughter.

Police have yet to determine if the Prius was moving or stopped due to a vehicle issue, McCoy said. The St. Louis Police Department’s accident-reconstruction team is investigating. Police said the truck driver cooperated with investigators.

“She was very much loved,” said Angela Gallagher of St. Louis, who helped organize the fundraiser. Gallagher’s son played a decade under Lischwe in club teams and later at McKendree.

“Bad things happen to good people,” she told them, “and you’re going to be angry and hurt. But live your best life, because that’s what Colleen wanted.”

The crash was about 6 a.m. Wednesday. St. Louis police spokesman Mitch McCoy said the truck driver told police he had looked down to pick up a drink and when he looked back up, he saw the woman’s Toyota Prius. 

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Colleen Lischwe, 34, of St. Louis, was fatally injured Wednesday in morning rush hour when her car was struck by a tractor-trailer on eastbound I-44. The car was pushed into a snowbank and careened off the highway, dropping onto Vandeventer Avenue below.

ST. LOUIS — The woman who died this week after her sedan was rammed by a tractor-trailer and pushed off Interstate 44 was the head water polo coach at McKendree University.

View the Post-Dispatch photographers’ photos from December 2023.

Gallagher, who started the fundraiser, said her son still plays at McKendree as a junior. News of Lischwe’s death hit the players hard, Gallagher said, and she has talked to some of the players about it.

McKendree University is in Lebanon, Illinois. In 2017, Lischwe was named head coach of McKendree University’s women’s water polo team. A year later, she also began coaching the men’s water polo team. The university’s athletic department said Lischwe was the only female head coach of a men’s NCAA water polo program.