2018 MSHSAA GIRLS STATE CHAMPIONSHIP
- Hosted at the St. Peters Rec-Plex, St. Peters, MO
- Class 1: Thursday and Friday, February 15th and 16th
- Class 1 Psych Sheet
- Class 1 Dive Order
- Class 2: Friday and Saturday, February 16th and 17th
- Class 2 Psych Sheet
- Class 2 Dive Order
- 2016-17 Results
- MSHSAA Championship Central
- NFHS Network Live Video
The 2017-18 season is the the beginning of a new era for Missouri high school Swimming & Diving, as it is the first year that the MSHSAA Championship is divided into two classes. This year the 48 schools with the largest enrollment sponsoring Girls’ Swimming & Diving teams will make up Class 2, leaving the 88 remaining smaller schools with teams to battle for the Class 1 title.
As would be expected, some of the most historically powerful teams were assigned to each class, meaning that neither meet will be weak. For instance, Springfield Glendale, who won the overall MSHSAA title in 2013 and 2014, has an incredible 23 individual event entries in Class 1 and is the top seed for the 200 Medley Relay, but will still not be the clear favorite with traditional St Louis area powerhouse schools Parkway Central, Parkway West, and Ladue Horton Watkins also showing incredible depth.
The most interesting development revealed from the psych sheets is the prevalence of programs who have entered the realm of top-4 team trophy contention. In Class 1, schools like Webster Groves, Cape Girardeau Central, Summit Prep, Kearney, Webb City, Logan-Rogersville and first-year program Carl Junction are showing enough depth in early projections to carry strong relevance in the overall team contest. Summit Prep might be the most impressive of all as they hold the top rank in both the 200 and 400 Freestyle Relays and are headed by Arkansas commit Molly Moore who holds the top seed in the 50 Freestyle and 100 Backstroke. Moore’s entry time in the backstroke is over four seconds ahead of the next competitor at 54.86. The only other two-event leader in Class 1 competition is Incarnate Word Academy’s Ellie Wehrmann who owns the top spot in the 200 Freestyle with 1:52.30 and 100 Freestyle with 52.87.
In class 2, the 2017 MSHSAA Champion Lafayette Lancers will be attempting to defend their title from Columbia Rockbridge, whose streak ended at two years when the Lancers overtook the defending champs in the final event of the meet last year by just 3.5 points with their 400 Free Relay win. Also showing enough depth to be in the hunt are Marquette, Columbia Hickman, Francis Howell, Blue Springs and Park Hill South.
Rockbridge is entered with the top time in the 200 Medley Relay, while Lafayette is top seed for the 200 and 400 Freestyle Relays. The Lancers only have one individual top seed in Frankie Petrosino who leads the 100 Freestyle at 51.71. That event though, is a testament to Lafayette’s depth as she is joined by teammates Claire Vanbiljon and Delaney Thomas who are entered at second and fourth place respectively with 52.88 and 53.07. Rockbridge has three events in which they boast the top seed, with Ellie Zweifel leading the 100 Backstroke, and Nicole Williams ranked 1st in the 200 IM and set to defend her 2017 title in the 100 Breaststroke.
Class 1 Swimming Preliminaries begin at 12:30pm Thursday, followed by Diving at 5pm. Class 1 Finals are Friday at 10am. Class 2 Preliminaries begin Friday at 5pm. Saturday sessions feature Class 2 Diving at 9am and Class 2 Swimming Finals at 3pm. Be sure to check in at SwimSwam.com for future write-ups.
These classifications are interesting. Nernix Hall has an enrollment of 585 (all girls), while Parkway Central has an enrollment of roughly 1300 (presumably 650 girls), yet Nernix is in the Class 2 and Parkway Central is in Class 1.
Yes, private schools in Missouri have their enrollment classified by calculation with a “multiplier”. This is due to their enrollment boundaries not being limited to a physical address. This is a consistent factor across MSHSAA Classification assignments.
Thanks for the update! It’s interesting that St. Joe’s and Ursuline are Class 1 and Nernix and Cor Jesu are Class 2 and they are typically rivals, but Nervix and Cor Jesu have slightly larger student bodies that I guess made the difference.