Rob Nasser, curator of prepswimco.com, has released the first Colorado girls’ high school rankings of the 2017-2018 season. These rankings, based on a hypothetical state championship meet of current season-best times, will continue until the real state championship meets that will be held from February 8th-10th.
In Class 5A, the biggest schools by enrollment, defending champions Fossil Ridge are out to a fast start, and have a narrow lead over Fairview in what is currently a two-team race. Fossil Ridge is home to the group of swimmers that, representing the Fort Collins Area Swim Team at the USA Swimming Winter Juniors – East, destroyed the 200 medley National Age Group Record. Fairview can’t match the firepower of Kaylee Alons, Coleen Gillilan, Zoe Bartel, and Bayley Stewart , but have a ton of depth that should keep them within range of the state title.
4A has a little bit of a shakeup – Rampart is ranked ahead of defending state champions Cheyenne Mountain, but this level, for mid-sized schools, has a lot more parity overall (only 11 points separate the top 2, and it’s less than 30 points to #3 Heritage).
In 3A, home to the smallest schools, Longmont holds a 1-point margin over Pueblo County, while defending champions Aspen are only 10th in the projected finish order.
Longmont sophomore Lucy Matheson ranks 1st in the 200 IM (2:10.69) and 500 free (4:08.26) this season, while Pueblo County’s Amanda Blickensderfer leads all 3A swimmers in the 100 fly (58.54). Watch out for #4 St. Mary’s Academy – they have the fastest 400 free relay in the class (3:45.91), the 2nd-fastest 200 medley relay (1:57.11), and the top times in 3 individual events. If they can find the depth to put together a decent 200 free relay, they will move up the rankings quickly. They’ve also got the advantage of the 3rd-ranked diver in 3A.
Notes from Nasser:
- A team scores points just like a championship meet by placing an athlete or relay in the top 16 and points are awarded in that fashion.
- Adjustments have been made that account for athletes ranked in more than 2 individual events so that the scores are not skewed from one athlete/school.
- The main reason for this is to hopefully generate more publicity for all of the kids who have worked so hard for it and swimming and diving in general.
- This is geared more for prediction of how the state championship meets will turn out, rather than how a dual meet against two teams will fare.
- Times/scores have been pulled in only from data submitted to MaxPreps. If you do not see times in there that should be, then you most likely did not submit them. This should help to motivate people/coaches to submit them in a timely manner. (Hint: Submit your meets to MaxPreps ASAP)
- An exhaustive listing of all submitted times is located at MaxPreps.com.
- If there is a media outlet that you would like me to include when I send these out, please let me know and I will add them in.