Plagiarism and the Divisional Relays!

I was reading through last year's blog entry for the Divisional Relays to compare how we did then versus how we did now (spoiler alert- pretty good both years, and scarily similar). That similarity in performance means a lot of that blog applies perfectly to this year: background info, hype, record breaking swims, bridesmaid finish... I felt like I was reading a story about this year with a few different names and times. And so, I was tempted to just stick a link in here and call it a day. But, instead I'm just going to grossly plagiarize myself and use a lot of the same stuff again. As they say, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

So, to get you up to speed if you aren't in the loop yet- Divisional Relays are awesome. This (and its big brother, the All-Star Relays) is my favorite meet of the year. When you boil it down, most of the swim team experience is really lots of individual performances placed within a team context. But not the Relays. The relays are a pure team event in every way and the team atmosphere is palpable. This is one of those times that you really see the leadership and character development stuff happening with the swimmers as they motivate each other to excel, celebrate together in success, and pick each other up in defeat.

To refresh on the background, 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.

New MVP 15-18 Free Record Holders. 

Divisional Relays also serves as a filtering meet, meaning that the times generated across the NVSL are used to determine the teams invited to the All-Star Relays next week. 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 10th.  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, (3) Score lots of points to help the overall team place high in the meet, and (4) Maybe set a record. 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, lots of teams scoring points to push MVP high up the overall standings for the meet, and lots of records.

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.... SIX new Gator records were set and quite a few age groups have very good odds to make All-Star Relays next week. Last year, we sent nine teams to All-Stars... and based on preliminary forecasts, it looks like we'll be somewhere in that ballpark again. And if a few of those teams on the bubble make the cut, we could even surpass it. 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 do change.

New MVP 13-14 Boys Medley Record Holders. 

Ok, you got me.  This is actually the
new 13-14 Record Holders. But, isn't that old
one from when they were 9-10 super cute.
#Gators4Life

Preliminary results show that new Gator records were set in the Boys Mixed Age Free Relay, the 13-14 Boys Medley Relay, the 15-18 Girls Medley Relay, the 15-18 Boys Medley Relay, the 15-18 Girls Free Relay, and the 15-18 Boys Free Relay. Awesome work Gators! And hello 15-18's (I see you). If you didn't notice the repeats in there, the 15-18 Boys and Girls each broke team relay records in both of their events (Medley and Free). 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 Donaldson Run. 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 now finished 2nd at Relays in five out of the last eight 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:

214 Donaldson Run
176 Mount Vernon Park
174 High Point Pool
160 Crosspointe
120 Hunter Mill
120 Vienna Woods

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 17th.

Go Gators!

Edit: You can read part two of this blog here.