The Minnesota State High School League has confirmed that it will host a boys high school state swim meet – but with a timed finals format and split into separate sessions.
The MSHSL approved coronavirus pandemic-adjusted state tournament formats for all winter sports last week. Full details are still being revealed, but here is what we know through the MSHSL site:
- Location: Jean Freeman Aquatic Center – University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN
- Diving: Thursday, March 18
- Swimming: Friday, March 19 & Saturday, March 20
- Timed Finals format for swimming
- “Maximum of 4 sections at any one time” per the MSHSL site
Minnesota has two classes for high school swimming: Class A for the state’s smaller schools and Class AA for the biggest schools. Typically, both meets happen with prelims on Friday and finals on Saturday, but the new plan would appear to put timed finals of one class on Friday and timed finals of the other class on Saturday.
The bigger wrinkle is the limit of four sections competing at one time. Class AA has 8 total sections and Class A 6 total sections, meaning each class will likely have to be broken up into multiple sessions.
Minnesota did not have a state meet for high school girls swimming & diving, which takes place as a fall sport. The approval of a boys state meet follows several other states coming to adjusted winter sport state championship formats.
Minnesota’s high school state meets should feature multiple nationally-ranked recruits including senior Hayden Zheng of St. Louis Park (#13 in his class and a Stanford signee) in AA and junior Charlie Crosby (#9 in his class and a Texas commit) in A.
As swimmers know, there are advantages to swimming against the best competition (I.e. prelims/finals).
Currently, the division of schools they have proposed favors the best schools to compete against each other in the second session, leaving smaller schools with fewer ranked swimmers at an unfair advantage with less talent, and times that will be posted prior to the second session.
When reached for comment, MSHSL claimed there were many factors in their decision, but unfortunately they have not disclosed those factors.
In my experience as a coach at the high school level, it was at best 50/50 whether my swimmers performed best against close competition or when they were well ahead. Probably less than 50% performed best against close competition.
I would imagine those ratios change the higher level you coach at, but I don’t think the axiom is as universally true as everyone (especially the swimmers’ parents) thinks it is.
While the COVID situation in Minnesota has been worse throughout the boys season than it was during the girls season, the boys season happens to coincide with the hockey season. And if they would have canceled the state hockey tournament, the protests and riots would have dwarfed anything we saw last summer.
I’m not gong to argue the importance of hockey in MN or the disappointment of not having the girls state. But you’ve got the pandemic facts all wrong! In fact, it’s actually the opposite! The boys season didn’t start until January and Covid numbers have been improving. In fact, recent numbers such as the infection rate are among the lowest in the country. The numbers started to peak (about new cases 9000 daily) in mid November which normally is the start of the girls postseason. In comparison, today’s numbers are : 677 news cases and 7-day moving inflection rate is 3.45%, both of which are among the lowest in the country.
The girl’s should have had their state meet also. Other states (i.e. Wisconsin) were able to have their state meets for the girls last fall!
Should we anticipate any Title IX implications for allowing boys to have a state meet but not girls?