Georgia Releases 2016 HS State Championships Psych Sheets

The psych sheets for the Georgia High School State Championship swim meets have been released, and the state’s biggest classification is lined up for a shakeup at the top

Georgia High School swimming is split into two classes: 6A (for big schools) and AAAAA-A (for smaller schools).

6A Meet

• February 4th (diving)-5th (prelims)-6th (finals)
• Psych sheets
• Live results
• 2015 results

The Walton boys and Lambert girls have each won their respective two prior state championships in class 6A. While still having top-end talent, both teams had huge graduations after last season and will be facing an uphill battle to three-peat.

This year, it’s instead the Walton girls who will enter the meet as favorites, holding the top seed in both the 200 and 400 free relays (by wide margins), and with a team loaded on underclassmen, this could be the start of a run for them.

They won’t go unchallenged. The Brookwood School and Lassiter High School girls, who finished 2nd and 3rd at last year’s meet, all return most of their state championship scoring from last season. Brookwood scored the most points at last year’s meet, but did lose some of their freestyle depth, which should leave things in a three way battle this season.

The boys’ meet, meanwhile, is wide open. Walton (310 points) and Alpharetta (303.5 points) were well clear of the pack this year, but graduations should bring them back to the field. The biggest movers could be the Brookwood boys, who were 7th at last year’s meet but only graduated one individual state championship qualifier.

If Walton does go for a three-peat, it will be largely due to the strength of their two junior divers Kyle Hudon and Josh Getty. They finished 4th and 5th, respectively, on the 1-meter last year.

1A-5A Meet

• February 4th (diving)-5th (prelims)-6th (finals)
• Psych sheet
• Live results
• 2015 results

In the smaller schools’ meet, the Westminster boys team will be favored to repeat as champions. They were only 15.5 points clear of runners-up Marist at last year’s meet, but the Marist team lost much more to graduation than did their rivals.

On paper, Westminster has an advantage with the top seeds entering the meet in all three relays, plus they return 3 scoring divers from last year’s meet (and have 4 entered this year).

The women’s meet appears more wide-open than the men’s, with Marist coming in as the defending champions (by over 60 points) and as good-of-a-chance as anyone to win this meet.

The most surprising contenders are the Pace girls, who were just 10th at last year’s meet and have never won a state title. They are the only team that enters the meet with all three relays seeded among the top 3.

With relatively little challenge to qualify for the state meet in Georgia, though, the psych sheets must be read as an outline rather than an oracle – the seed times are nowhere near where the ultimate winning times will fall.