Beginning on October 21st, the Florida High School Athletics Association launched their 2013 District Championship meets.
In Florida, these district meets are particularly noteworthy to a broad audience as they are a direct qualifier to the regional and then state levels. Most states in the country have gone to qualifying times systems instead, but a few (like Florida and Texas, notably) still use this place-by-place advancement).
This means that, in the least, that we can cull the races that some of the biggest stars will be swimming at State, and for now, we’ll highlight two potential National High School Record holders.
In Class 2A, District 3, Clay High School’s Caeleb Dressel will swim at the O’Connell Center on the University of Florida campus on Friday, October 25th, at 10AM.
Dressel, who already is the National High School Record holder in the 50 yard free and 100 fly, will be giving himself four opportunities for records, at least in the early stages of the advancement.
He will swim the 200 yard free and 100 fly individually (he broke the 100 fly record mid-season this year at the FSPA Invitational with a 45.89), and the plan is to have him lead off the 200 and 400 yard free relays. Those lead-off splits could give him records in both the 50 (he was a 19.36 to break that record already at FSPA) and 100 yard freestyles.
The two of those in which he is not yet the holder are the 100 and 200 yard freestyles.
In the 100, his flat-start best is a 43.29 – from the 2012 Winter Junior Nationals, which was a quick turnaround from last year’s state championship meet. The overall and public school records in that event belongs to former Hershey HS (PA) swimmer David Nolan in 42.34. Nolan set his record in a relay lead-off as well.
In the 200 yard free, Dressel swam a 1:35.51 at the NCSA Junior Nationals in March of 2013, which is a bigger margin off of Tom Shields’ 1:33.83 from his senior year at Edison High in California. Shields did that time in a prelims swim.
Dressel is not really all that close to either record on paper, but given the improvements he showed over the summer, especially in the 200, we know that they’re sitting on thin ice.
The other obvious National High School record holder sitting behind the blocks this weekend is the Bolles School’s Joseph Schooling at the Class 1A District 2 Meet. Their swimming portion will be at Jacksonville’s Episcopal High School on Thursday at 3PM (with diving at Bolles). He will swim the 100 fly as his only individual event, along with three Bolles relays – the same schedule he took on last season.
Note that the Florida High School qualifying procedures have changed slightly this year as they go to a system of 4 state meets.
For a complete listing of dates/times for this year’s Florida District Championship meets, click here.
Sheridan Dressel may have had the best swim of that district meet. 52.06 100 Free. Girl is good.
another swimming skilled family ! really nice to seee
FHSAA State meet is Nov 9.
Where can i see the results of the meet where caeleb is swimming? And what isthe full name of those competitions?
Kenny – there won’t be results available for most of the meets until after they’re all done on Saturday, because the coaches are very sensitive about those in the later meets trying to game the system based on the results of earlier meets. We’ll post a link once they’re all up.
Some are available on Meet Mobile – search FHSAA.
Also, Dressel was just a 1:39.6 in the 200 free.
Wait…. 139? Was this prelims? Because that time makes no sense
District meet. No rest.
Ah, understand. When is the state meet for his team?
Salo could do so much more for him under his training. Especially in the sprint IMs and other strokes
He’s a sprinter!
No need to try IM!
He can dominate the world sprint in the next years!
50 free, 100 free, and 100 fly must be his goals.
USC can be good but like Cal, Texas or Auburn.
It’s a very American thing to want to add more races, Bobo… we have out 12 year olds racing up to 9 individual events in some LSC’s, which could mean with relays, up to 23 races in a 3-4 day period. I guess we are all looking for the next Phelps/Lochte 🙂
I’m with you- entering into college (if not a bit earlier) we need to be paring the schedules down to focus on making the Elite into World Class. Not adding more Elite from Very Good. Elite sounds great, but if you can be World Class, you gotta go for it, in my mind.
It would be the best decision of Dressels life if he went to UT. Make that right choice big guy! You will be a happy man if you pick UT.
I would agree with you if UT had a tradition of excellence caused by their sprinting abilities. With the exception of Jimmy Feigen and possibly Dax Hill (I am talking mainly straight 50 free, 100 free, 100 stroke) they have not continued sprinting ability past college since Garret Weber-Gale who graduated six years ago. If he wants to continue his Sprinting dominance he would benefit way more by choosing a school like Arizona or Auburn. Who knows what is happening at Arizona with Coach Hansen right now though. Auburn has continued to build sprinters to their prime during college and also give them the ability to further improve after their collegiate career.
Do you think Eddie has forgotten how to train sprinters? Com on man. He has had some amazing sprint guys during his time at UT and still knows how to make em great. Jack and Joseph can both sprint and adding Caeleb to the mix would be insane. Watching those 3 train against each other daily would be fun.