1.  Some meets will take place in an 8 lane pool. When we use an 8 lane pool, lanes 1 and 8 swim exhibition. So if you are trying to figure out how many points we scored in a Varsity heat, the swimmers in lanes 1 and 8 will not count towards team points. The times will be official but even if the swimmer in lane 8 gets first place, that athlete will not score points for her team.

2.  For diving, every week there is a required dive category (such as front, back, inward, reverse, twist). The first dive must be from that category. Then the remaining 5 dives need to include 4 categories of dives (and no repeat dives are allowed).  For diving, every week there is a required dive category (such as front, back, inward, reverse, twist). The first dive must be from that category. Then the remaining 5 dives need to include 4 categories of dives (and no repeat dives are allowed). (Divers can dive exhibition in dual meets if they don't have a 6 dive list that meets those requirements.)

3.  If you are wondering why some of the results from the swim meet have an "X" in front of them, it is because those swimmers were swimming "exhibition." The times will still count for those swims. Exhibition means one of two things- usually when one team is ahead by a lot in a meet (i.e. guaranteed to win), the team starts to swim exhibition. The races then do not count for points and then the score of the meet ends up being closer. The second time swimmers swim for exhibition is when we have more than 3 Varsity and 3 JV swimmers in an event (could be because we are using an 8 lane pool or because there are multiple heats of JV). Each team is allowed 3 Varsity and 3 JV swimmers or divers per event. We can have more but they don't score points. Therefore, they are considered exhibition and will have an "x" before their time or name.

4. Our dual meets (meets where 2 teams go against each other) have the same order of events each meet. For each event, there will for sure be a Varsity heat. There will also most likely be a Junior Varsity heat. If the teams have a lot of athletes, there may also be exhibition heats. The exhibition heats will give the athletes an official time but the places they receive won't score points for JV or Varsity. For each event, we will swim all exhibition heats, then the JV heat, then the Varsity heat. It is also possible for a team to have exhibition divers if the team has more than 6 divers (3 JV, 3 Varsity). The score for the meet will be calculated based on the placing of the athletes in each Varsity heat.

5. What is True Team and how does it work?

True team uses the same sections that are used for Varsity sections in November (Wayzata, Maple Grove, Irondale, Osseo, Park Center, Spring Lake Park, and us).

For True Team, each team is allowed a maximum of 4 entries per each event (including relays). This contrasts sections where we get 4 entries per individual event but only 1 relay team per event.

True Team has no prelims or finals.

Scoring is simple. If there are 25 entries in an event, first place gets 25 points, second place gets 24 points, third place gets 23 points all the way down to 24th place gets 2 points and 25th place gets 1 point. If there were 36 entries in an event, then 36th place would get 1 point. The same is true for diving. This scoring benefits teams that have a lot of depth.

If a team wins True Team sections, they get to advance to True Team State (the whole team goes rather than just a couple of athletes). 

Up to what point can a coach switch who swims what event at any meet? As long as event limitations are followed (i.e. max 2 individual events per person, 4 events per person counting relays), a coach may switch who is swimming which event as well as the order of relay swimmers up until the start of that event. This is why we do not have programs at high school meets. The line-ups are secret from the other team because the coaches are allowed to make changes as the meet is progressing.

6. What are the top reasons for a DQ? In my experience, the top reasons for a Varsity athlete to get their swim disqualified are early take-off in a relay, false start, and incorrect back to breast turn in the 200 IM. The top reasons I see for a JV or exhibition athlete to get their swim disqualified are early take-off in a relay, illegal breaststroke kick (i.e. doing alternating or scissors or butterfly kick instead of breaststroke kick with feet turned out), non simultaneous arms in butterfly, and multiple strokes done on the breast when doing the backstroke turn.

7. Why do our normal meets not allow those times to count for qualifying for state? This is a MSHSL rule. All qualifying times and swims must occur during finals at the section meet. I do not know the why of rule. I could speculate that perhaps it is because at sections there are 4 officials at every site so the swims are judged more fairly across all sites whereas in the regular season meets, sometimes only 1 official is used and that is acceptable. But the next time I see Jim Marshall I can ask him (he is the head of the officials/the overseer of all officials).

8. How do the officials determine which time to use as the official time (pad, button, watches)? Unless we have a reason to doubt the pad time we take the pad time as it is the most accurate (fully automatic with no human error). If we have reason to doubt the pad time (i.e. the pad time doesn't match the order of finish from the officials, we know there was a computer malfunction, there was a soft touch, the watch times or button times are more than .3 faster than the pad time), then we do some investigating. The next time we would take is the button time as it is the next most automatic time (the start is automatic but the finish is controlled by a human hitting a button). Again if the order of finish doesn't match the pad time, we know there was a technical error with the timing system, the watches are more than .3 faster than the button, then we again do some investigating. If we don't trust the pad or the button, then we use an average of the 2 watch times.

9. Why don't we write down the split times from the stop watches in case the pads miss it? The primary reason we don't write down the split times is because we don't want the timers to miss getting the time at the end (or mess up getting the time at the end). The split times are interesting but especially in high school swimming (vs club swimming), the split times don't count or matter for anything other than information for a coach on how fast the athlete was swimming each leg of the race. What the timers are really needed for is the end time in case there is a timing system malfunction (as mentioned above and we need to use the watch times).