Divisional Relays - Initial Results are in!

Divisional Relays are awesome. When you boil it down, most of the swim team experience is really lots of individual performances placed within a team context. (I also feel that way about baseball, but that's another blog post.) But not the Relays. The relays are really a team event in every way and the team atmosphere is palpable.  For those not in the know, the Divisional Relays are a meet matching up the six teams in our division (Division 3, for us this year) with every age group swimming a Medley Relay and a Free Relay, with two Mixed Age Free Relays thrown in there for good measure.

13-14 Boys Medley Record Breakers

It is a great event that really highlights the strong team bonds formed on the summer swim teams. The tension, the camaraderie, the team support are all highly intensified at the meet with parents, coaches, teammates and friends all cheering each other on and rallying each team to its peak performance. And sprinkle on top the fact that pretty much every team in Division 3 is already amazingly fast and you have one heck of a swim meet. It's intense!


An important note regarding All-Stars is that best times from "A" Meets don't count for qualification... ONLY times recorded at Divisional Relays can qualify them, so there is lots of pressure on the teams to perform on this one night. All-Star cuts are determined by selecting the top 18 relay times throughout the entire NVSL, so the exact cut is never known, but last year's numbers are usually a pretty good guide. Placing 1st or 2nd at Divisionals does not automatically get a team into All Stars. The time is what matters. In some Divisions, no teams get in to All Stars at all, while in the strongest divisions, even a 5th or 6th place team can make All-Stars if the times are good enough.

This year's Divisional Relays were held Wednesday night, July 11th. (Which was 7/11 day by the way, did you get your free Slurpee?) Every team and age-group comes to relays with multiple goals: (1) Win the race, (2) Swim fast enough to make the cut for All-Star Relays, and (3) Score lots of points to help the overall team place high in the meet. MVP nailed it in all of these areas with lots of teams winning their races, lots of teams swimming fast enough to likely make the All-Star cuts, and lots of teams scoring points to push MVP high up the overall standings for the meet.

15-18 Girls Free Relay Record Breakers

We'll be posting more details and pictures in the next 24 hours once the final results are certified and sent out, but for now here's a bit of a teaser.... FOUR new Gator records were set and quite a few age groups have very good odds to make All-Star Relays next week. Note: we know that some of our teams are "below the cut" based on times from previous years, so they will almost certainly make the All-Stars, but nothing is official until the NVSL compiles and validates all the times from all 17 NVSL divisions from Wednesday. The cut times don't normally change very much from year-to-year, but they can change.

Initial reports are that new Gator records were set in the 11-12 Boys Medley Relay, the 11-12 Boys Free Relay, the 13-14 Boys Medley Relay, and the 15-18 Girls Free Relay. Awesome work Gators! More information and all the specific details (swimmers, times, etc) will be coming after the results and final times are released Thursday night. Check back for the update on Friday.

For the overall team competition, the Relay Carnival itself is scored differently than normal meets since there are six teams swimming in every event. Every team that completes a race without a DQ gets points. First place teams get 14 points, second place teams get 10, third place gets 8 and so on progressively down 6, 4, 2 for the other three. Then those points are totaled up at the end of the meet to give a final score to each team and crown a Relay Carnival Champion. MVP came in 2nd place overall, behind Hunt Valley. Interestingly, second place seems to be our sweet spot at this event lately and we are collecting a lot of bridesmaid dresses in the old MVP Swamp Closet, having finished 2nd at Relays in four out of the last seven years. And for those wondering, our most recent 1st place finish was a tie with Little Rocky Run in 2015. Final scores for Division 3 this year were:

190 Hunt Valley
171 Mount Vernon Park
164 High Point Pool
162 Donaldson Run
157 Hunter Mill
120 Lee-Graham

That's a strong second place finish in a tough division. Great work Gator relays! Check back tomorrow for the rest of the specific details and to get the low-down on All-Star Relays coming up on July 18th.

Go Gators!