First, I think I owe the community an apology. In researching and preparing for this blog entry, I discovered something rather shocking... and disappointing. I've been doing the Gator blog for about five years now. And those of you who have been reading along with us know that I like to make quite a few movie references. Well, my idea for this blog was from one of my "go to" movies for general references, but I couldn't remember how many times, and how many scenes, I've already referenced from said movie in the past few years. So, I thought I should do a quick audit to make sure I wasn't recycling old content. And what did I find? Zero. Zilch. Nada. No references to Caddyshack at all! In nearly five years of blogging. I don't know what to say. I'm not sure how I allowed that to happen, and I am truly sorry. I will rectify that issue immediately. Caddyshack quotes aplenty!
Judge Smails: Ty, what did you shoot today?
Ty: Oh, I don't keep score, Judge.
Judge: Oh, well, how do you measure yourself with other golfers?
Ty: By height.
Simple and classic. I love that line and try to us it in conversations whenever I can... and about 100 others from that movie, but don't we all?
But what does it have to do with Divisional Relays? Well, I was thinking about it, and I thought that maybe this was a good time to point out some other measurement techniques to evaluate our performance. "How do you measure yourself against other swimmers?" "By height."
Okay. Not exactly. But it is no secret that this season has been a challenging one at the team level. Our competition in D2 is especially strong this year, and we are collectively having an off year as even many of our best swimmers (save a few exceptions) aren't always hitting their elite level performances in the pool, which is asking a lot by the extremely high bar that our swimmers have set for themselves in previous seasons. But the goal of this "alternative measurement" is to show that while we may not always be hitting our own high expectations of elite performances, we are still doing great. And I thought a good way to benchmark that is by creating a virtual Relay Carnival meet between a bunch of the local Fort Hunt pools. So, I pulled the data from Wednesday and put together a comparison of how the Relay Carnival would have turned out if we swam against this group instead of D2, namely: Waynewood, Hollin Meadows, Stratford, Riverside Gardens, and Little Hunting Park. Along with MVP, that makes a tidy little division of six teams, the unofficial NVSL Fort Hunt Division.
 |
| "Be the ball." |
As background, teams are scored on the following graduated scale in the Relay Carnival:
First place: 14 points
Second: 10 points
Third: 8 points
Fourth: 6 points
Fifth: 4 points
Sixth: 2 points
DQ: 0 points
So, using that scoring scale and pulling the times from all six teams, I put together a "Fort Hunt Division" Relay Carnival. Virtual, yes, but still fun to look at.
 |
| "You buy a hat like that, I bet you get a free bowl of soup. Oh... Looks good on you though." |
So, how did things turn out? Pretty good for the Gators. The final scoring would have been:
1. Mount Vernon Park 228
2. Little Hunting Park 194
3. Waynewood 144
4. Riverside Gardens 136
5. Hollin Meadows 132
6. Stratford 102
Not too shabby. A commanding victory for the Gators in the matchup of local teams. In the 22 relay events, the Gator teams would have come away with 10 victories, three 2nds, five 3rds, three 4ths, and no 5th or 6th place finishes (with one DQ). Little Hunting Park, as the nearest challenger, would have had seven race victories, while no other team would have had more than two.
I will take a quick paragraph here to give a shout-out to LHP for their virtual 2nd place finish. That amounts to quite a tectonic shift in the local pecking order of pools. As recently as 2015, LHP was in Division 15, but has been on a strong upward trajectory ever since. And looking closely at the "Fort Hunt Division" Relay Carnival data, it appears that ascension is poised to continue. A detailed analysis of the races shows an outsized share of the younger age group victories, including first or second in every 8 & under and 9-10 age group race. And, while they currently sit in Division 9, they are 4-0 this season, which ensures promotion next season. The NVSL wisdom dictates that teams with strong lower age groups tend climb the NVSL ladder as those age groups grow. In Caddyshack terms, we may be the Judge Smails/Dr. Beeper defending club champions on the local course, but LHP has done well in the caddy tournament and is making a challenge for supremacy. So, well done LHP, and I for one will be checking over my shoulder in the next year or three to see if they continue the charge up the ranks.
 |
| "I want a hamburger, no a cheeseburger. I want a hot dog. I want a milkshake." |
But enough about LHP. The main point of this analysis was to look at how the MVP relays stacked up versus the local teams. And the answer is GREAT.
MVP's ten victories would have been in both mixed age free relays, 9-10G Medley, 11-12G Medley, 15-18G Medley, 9-10G Free, 11-12G Free, 13-14B Free, 15-18G Free, and 15-18B Free.
Yeah, I know, virtual meets aren't quite as satisfying as the real thing... but I do think it is good to put our team's performance in context, which I think this comparison does nicely. With that context, I hope everyone can see how well our team did relatively speaking, viewed from outside the lens of D2. But, this is a blog about the actual D2 Relay Carnival. So, with all that previous discussion as pretext, let's go ahead and dive into the actual results of the D2 relays.
 |
| "Big hitter, the Lama..." |
The Gators came in sixth place with 116 points, while Crosspointe took home the trophy with 190. The full results are online here.
MVP's top performance on the night was the Boys 13-14 Freestyle Relay (George Schulte, Matthew Makin, Jack Alzona, & Alex North) which placed 2nd. The same group was also in the 13-14 Medley, but unfortunately DQ'd in that one. They are the 2nd ranked team in D2 for the 100m Medley, so we can assume that, if not for the DQ, they'd have been near the top of the 200m Medley, too.
There were six MVP teams that finished in 3rd place:
Boys Mixed Age Free Relay - Sam Bruce, Lincoln Jetton, Alex North, Clark Bayer
 |
| "So, I've got that going for me... which is nice." |
Girls 9-10 Medley Relay(*16) - Elizabeth Kellogg, Evelyn Milito, Kate Barber, Margaret Driscoll
Girls 11-12 Medley Relay(*Alt) - Karly Whitehead, Reese Myers, Alexandra Myers, Helen Milito
Girls 9-10 Free Relay(*17) - Evelyn Milito, Kate Barber, Andrea Morales, Margaret Driscoll
Girls 11-12 Free Relay(*18) - Karly Whitehead, Alexandra Myers, Julia Himes, Helen Milito
Boys 11-12 Free Relay - Sam Bruce, Ty Mills, Rhett Butler, Anthony Sarro
We had four teams qualify for All-Star Relays (meaning that they are in the top-18 of all relay times in the NVSL). Additionally, we had three teams come in as alternates in the 19th or 20th spots. The asterisks (*) above indicate those teams and their seeding. The teams below swam so fast, against such strong competition, that even though they finished outside the top-3 in their Divisional races, their times were still good enough to get the All-Star bids or alternate nods:
9-10 Boys Medley (*Alt) - Jackson Saloom, Lincoln Jetton, Andrew Wiggers, Jacob Milito
 |
| "He's a Cinderella story...outta nowhere" |
15-18 Girls Medley (*17) - Lily Palmerino, Olivia Blondin, Emily Makin, Juliana Skopp-Cardillo
15-18 Girls Free (*Alt) - Juliana Skopp-Cardillo, Lily Palmerino, Caroline Miller, Emily Makin
In a normal season, these teams would all get to gather for the All-Star Relay Carnival, which along with the Divisional Relays, are normally my favorite meets of the year. But while we are mostly back to a post-Covid normal routine for the swim season, the All-Star Relay event was one of the casualties that the league was not quite ready to undertake yet. The higher concentration of teams all in one meet was deemed to be just a bit too risky for this year. But we should be back in business next year.
So, there's the results, and some context that hopefully helps put things in perspective. Another Relay Carnival in the books.
Go Gators!
I will take a moment to add... the Relay Carnival was held at McLean. While a great pool with terrific parking and nice facilities, it was not the best spectator location for Relays. Everybody wants to watch these exciting races, and the limited deck space for spectators at McLean was a bit of a downer in a normally spectacularly fun event. What we need for an event like this is a pool that has a hill or some elevated space next to the pool where spectators can all sit and watch the races in their "stadium seating," cheering on the racers. Anyone know of a pool like that? Hmmm.
 |
| "Hey, you scratched my anchor!" |
No comments:
Post a Comment