High School Swimming FAQ

The coach publishes a detailed calendar of practices and meets before the season begins. Generally speaking, the team practices every weekday after school from 3:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. at the Southwest High School pool. There are also some Saturday morning practices throughout the season.

Athletes are expected to attend every practice and meet. Swimmers must notify the coaches of their planned absences ahead of time.

High schoolers walk to the pool after classes conclude. 

Middle schoolers must arrange their own transportation to the high school. Often, one of the regular middle school buses will have a drop-off point near the high school, and the middle school transportation coordinator can switch the student to that bus. Or, parents can get the swimmers to and from the pool.

The school does not provide a bus to away meets. Instead, swimmers organize carpools among themselves and their parents. (For new drivers, keep in mind the graduated-licensing restrictions of how many passengers under 18 are allowed to ride in the car.) 

DUAL MEETS

A dual meet is a head to head meet against one other team in our conference. They're usually once every week, after school, competition starts around 5 p.m. and lasts about two hours.

CHAMPIONSHIP MEETS

Each athlete will compete in at least one end of season meet. Athletes who aren't swimming events in a meet still attend to support their teammates.

JV CONFERENCE... The JV Conference Meet is a final meet for athletes to strive for their season best races.

SECTION MEET... A meet among all the teams in a section. Each team selects the top four individual entries per event and one relay team for each relay. This meet has two parts: prelims and finals. Athletes swim their strongest events in a preliminary session on the first day. The top 16 swimmers and relay teams in each event advance to finals on the second day of competition. At finals, there are two heats of each event. Medals are awarded to the top eight swimmers from the championship heat in a podium ceremony. The top two individual and relay finishers continue to the State meet, as well as anyone else who swims faster than the state-qualifying time at section finals.

STATE MEET... The Minnesota State High School League State Meet is held at the University of Minnesota Aquatic Center. The meet is a prelims/finals format over three days. It is a great achievement to qualify for this meet which celebrates the state’s top swimmers. The swims are fast, the facility is one of the best in the country, and the meet is high energy.

INVITATIONAL MEETS

Invitational meets bring together teams from different sections that don't normally compete with each other. Multiple teams are invited to a meet with the same events as a dual meet. Scoring varies. Invitationals are a great way for athletes to expand their view beyond the "usual suspects".

TRUE TEAM

This meet is designed and scored to test a team’s depth -- you can't win it with just one or two star performers. Teams can enter four individuals and four relays in each event. ALL competitors score points in EVERY event. We compete against the other teams in our section. Not all teams choose to participate in this meet. Due to the limited number of entries, it is possible that no athletes will compete at this meet. The top team in each section qualifies for the True Team State Meet which is held the following weekend.

DIVING AT TRUE TEAM, SECTIONS AND STATE MEETS

The format for these meets is different than the dual meets. The top four divers from each team will compete at Sections. The top four divers at the Section meet will compete at State. Competitors must have a larger repertoire of dives they can perform, so only the more advanced divers attend these meets. 

In these meets, divers perform eleven dives rather than the six dives in dual meets. Of the eleven dives performed, five are voluntary dives and six are optional. The preliminary round goes through the first five dives, and the field is cut to twenty divers. The semi-final round then goes through eight dives, and the field is then cut to sixteen divers. The final round then goes through eleven dives, and the event is scored. The top four divers at the section meet advance to the state meet. 

DUAL MEETS... For dual meets, each team enters three swimmers in each individual event and three relay teams in each relay event (in an eight-lane pool, a fourth competitor for each team may be entered as exhibition). Each athlete may enter a maximum of four events, no more than two of which can be individual events. Swimmers are selected by the coach for each event or relay based on their times and the coach’s goals for that meet. There may be multiple heats of each event, swum in the following progression: Exhibition, JV, Varsity.

At dual meets, divers are required to perform one voluntary dive and five optional dives for a total of six dives for each meet. Voluntary dives are the simpler ones, such as a front dive, a back dive, a reverse dive, or an inward dive. Optional dives can be any dive except the one performed for the voluntary dive. Each week, the voluntary dive that must be performed changes. The first meet, a front must be done as the voluntary; the second meet, a back; the third meet, a reverse; the fourth meet, an inward; the fifth meet, a twister; and that cycle continues until the dual meet season is over. The divers must perform five optionals from only four groups, without repeating the dive they did for their voluntary.

INVITATIONALS... At invitational swim meets and championship swim meets, there will often be multiple heats of swimmers grouped together by time. Heats progress in order from slowest times to fastest times. Invitationals are usually single-session "timed finals" events.

At invitational and sectional meets, diving usually takes place at another time and/or location. All divers compete at the same time – varsity divers compete in 6 dives each, while JV divers complete a number of dives determined by their diving coach. 

Every high school meet has the same order of events. 

Each event consists of either one stroke or a "medley" of all four competitive strokes: freestyle, butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke. Every race is a specific distance: 50 yards, 100 yards, 200 yards or 500 yards. The pool is 25 yards long.

1. 200 Medley Relay. Four individual swimmers form the relay, swimming 50 yards each, in order: Backstroke, Breaststroke, Butterfly, and Freestyle.

2. 200 Freestyle

3. 200 Individual Medley (IM). Each athlete swims 50 yards of each stroke in order: Butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, and freestyle.

4. 50 Freestyle

5. Diving

6. 100 Butterfly

7. 100 Freestyle

8. 500 Freestyle

9. 200 Freestyle Relay. Four individual swimmers form the relay, each swimming 50 yards of freestyle.

10. 100 Backstroke

11. 100 Breaststroke

12. 400 Freestyle Relay. Four individual swimmers form the relay, each swimming 100 yards of freestyle.

At a dual meet, there are 170 points available. There are 14 points available for each of the three relays (totaling 42 points), and each of the eight individual events has 16 points available (totaling 128 points).

RELAYS... The top 3 places are scored; only two relay teams may score for each team. 

INDIVIDUAL EVENTS... The top five places are scored; only three individuals may score for each team. 

If there are empty lanes for relays or individual events, these points are forfeited from the meet.

DIVING... The diving competition is scored as an individual event. The top five places are scored the same as an individual event. There are three judges, one from each team’s coaching staff, and one official. Each dive is assigned a degree of difficulty. Each dive’s total score is added up to get a final score, which then determines the final ranking of the divers.

Once a team has secured a victory (94 points), in the spirt of sportsmanship, coaches may forfeit their remaining points. Remaining varsity swimmers for the victorious team will be counted as exhibition swims and will not earn points towards their team’s total. 

Unlike club rules, times swum at high school meets do not qualify a swimmer for the MSHSL state meet. State qualifying times must be achieved at SECTION FINALS (not prelims). There are no ribbons or other awards at dual meets. They are an opportunity for swimmers to better their times, help the team score points, and maybe even set a new record - personal, pool, and/or team!