A Thought on High School Swimming

Just something I was thinking about recently...

With many swimmers also competing on club teams, swimming is one of the few sports at the High School level where teams do not typically practice together. Many coaches see the club swimmers on their teams once a week, or only at the meets, often encouraging these swimmers to go to the other teams, where the workouts are often of higher intensity. On one hand this might lead to disunity on the team, but on the other hand, it leads to faster swimming by the club swimmers, and an increased ability for the coaches to focus on the high school only swimmers. Now, obviously swimming does not have the teamwork factor like maybe basketball, where teamwork is so essential to winning a game. Is there really one conclusive answer? I would say not, but logically it seems to make more sense for the club swimmers to practice mainly with their clubs, and occasionally go to the high school practices and meets to check in with the coaches, and make sure all is well.
For my next post, I am going to attempt to take a look at some of the downstate schools as best as I am able, considering I have an admittedly limited knowledge of the schools south of New Castle County.

Blue Hen Conference Meet?

I seem to recall last year there was talk of trying to organize a Blue Hen Conference Meet for this year, something similar to how the Independent Schools have the DISC meet before states. I realize it would be tough to try to schedule that meet into the season, but I think it would be fun, especially in order to maybe have a smaller meet than states, and a chance to include more swimmers that wouldn't normally get to take part in a big championship meet. I understand that organizing meets can be a real headache, but I think there are enough people around the conference with experience running meets that it could happen, possibly at a site like McKean, Obviously not this year, but maybe in the near future. I think if each team donated volunteers and helped with planning, it could definitely work out.

Girls Update

Just this past week previously un-ranked Padua pulled off an upset over #2 Tatnall. Padua remains undefeated, but still has to face St. Mark's and Charter. My thought is that Padua won the meet with help from having a larger team than Tatnall, which I assume cannot fill all of the lanes in every event in a 6-lane pool. Those 3rd, 4th, and 5th place finishes mean so much in high school swimming. But don't write Tatnall off just yet. The state meet means an entirely different scoring system, and with Tatnall looking to put swimmers in the top few spots in some events, they will still be a threat to second, and even first place.
The next rankings should show Charter staying in first, with a commanding win over St. Mark's, Brandywine maybe will move to 2nd, possibly a 3rd place for Padua, Tatnall in 4th, St. Mark's in 5th, but it could go any way with those teams, we'll see how it plays out.

Update

Seeing as The News Journal is publishing the Swimming Honor Roll this year, as well as the availability of the lists at delawaresports.com, I have decided to do away with trying to keep an up-to-date top 5 list.
Anyway, some thoughts:
St. Andrew's boys only beat Tatnall by 4 points, and while Tatnall does have a few strong swimmers, they tend to not be a very deep team, leading me to believe St. Andrew's is also not very deep, so do they deserve the #5 ranking from The News Journal?
And things are getting interesting in the Blue Hen Conference. Brandywine lost to Mount Pleasant, who I believe I heard lost to Newark (I didn't see results, but I seem to remember hearing they had a close meet but lost), but now Brandywine has handed Newark its first loss of the season. And, although St. Mark's isn't in the BHC, they beat Mt. Pleasant and Brandywine, but lost to Newark. So, from the looks of it, those teams should have a very interesting matchup going into States this year, sounds like it will be an exciting meet.
As for The News Journal's top 5 teams, Sallies definitely looks to be the real #1 thus far, AI belongs ahead of Charter, with no one between, but should they be 2-3 or 3-4? It is tough to tell, with Archmere swimming a limited schedule, their two strongest wins being St. Andrew's and Tatnall. However, this again comes down to a question of depth. From the newspaper, and from what I am assuming they make their top 5 choices on, all that is seen is the first place swimmers in each event. While both St. Andrew's and Archmere have some very fast swimmers, what happens past the first place finishes? Is there a drop off? And possibly more importantly, can they have 3 strong relays at once, with the event limitations? Archmere swims Sallies in one week, maybe then we can have a better idea as to what depth they have by seeing how close they can pull to Sallies. No matter what, this year's state meet is looking to be a good one, even if Sallies can take first without too many issues, the battles for the rest of the places should be interesting, with Charter and AI having a close meet, Archmere and St. Andrew's with some high expectations, and Newark, Brandywine, Mt. Pleasant, and St. Mark's having an interesting combination of wins and losses leaving us with little idea as to who is the strongest team of that group. Only time will tell.
Any thoughts?

Top 5 by Event, Boys Only

Here is my first edition of the Top 5 by event for Boys' Swimming. Keep in mind that it comes from only the Event Winners at all meets as published on the High School Sports section of Delawareonline. Also, please forgive any errors, I do not stand by the accuracy of the times, and any typographical errors are entirely unintentional. Look for updates as more results become available.

200 MR
AI DuPont 1:40.79
Salesianum 1:43.03
Charter 1:43.24
DMA 1:43.84
St. Andrew's 1:44.50
200 Free
T. Kurz DMA 1:45.41
McKee Brandywine 1:46.27
Stradley AI DuPont 1:47.72
Materniak Tatnall 1:47.87
Minderlein Salesianum 1:48.80
200 IM
McKee Brandywine 1:59.90
Gordon Salesianum 2:01.11
Gehrs St. Andrew's 2:01.16
L. Minka AI DuPont 2:03.62
Pryor Salesianum 2:05.61
50 Free
Ramsey Charter 21.61
Gehrs St. Andrew's 21.96
MacLeish CR 22.57
Crawford Newark 22.58
Coggin Archmere 22.62
100 Fly
Moore Mt. Pleasant 53.53
Gordon Salesianum 53.54
Brown Dover 55.29
Pryor Salesianum 55.38
Pagan Charter 56.03
100 Free
Ramsey Charter 47.25
Agresta Archmere 47.87
Moore Mt. Pleasant 48.75
McKee Brandywine 48.85
MacLeish CR 49.05
500 Free
Minderlein Salesianum 4:44.61
T. Kurz DMA 4:53.75
B. Brooks Charter 4:54.79
McKee Brandywine 4:59.80
Hampel Salesianum 5:02.57
200 FR
Archmere 1:30.34
DMA 1:31.88
AI DuPont 1:32.37
St. Andrew's 1:32.63
Tatnall 1:34.53
100 Back
Gordon Salesianum 54.46
Moore Mt. Pleasant 55.51
Brown Dover 55.70
Panaccione St. Mark's 56.04
Gehrs St. Andrew's 56.09
100 Breast
T. Kurz DMA 58.39
Crawford Newark 1:00.19
Materniak Tatnall 1:00.97
L. Minka AI DuPont 1:01.28
Klair AI DuPont 1:01.29
400 FR
Charter 3:20.81
Brandywine 3:27.75
Newark 3:29.91
Mt. Pleasant 3:33.86
St. Andrew's 3:34.84

First Post

A little about this blog...
I am Jeff Brooks, and although I am from Charter, I will do my best to remain as unbiased as possible. I will be updating this periodically throughout the season, and you can expect comments on meet results, as well as rankings as defined on Delawareonline. Feel free to add any comments, so long as they are generally constructive, and wouldn't be considered offensive by most reasonable people. Hope you enjoy.