The Oklahoma Secondary School Activities Association (OSSAA) has altered their qualifying criteria for the 2015-2016 season.
There will still be 24 qualifiers advancing to the state championship meet in each of the state’s two classes, but under the new rules, the value of the Regional championship meets, at least for state qualification, has been minimized.
- Old Qualifying System: Under the old qualifying system, the 8 fastest swimmers in each region advanced to the state championship meet, along with 8 “wildcards” chosen as the next-fastest times from the two regions combined.
- New Qualifying System: Under the new qualifying system, the 24 fastest swimmers, regardless of region, advance to the state championship meet. This effectively makes the regional meet a two-site, two-tiered preliminary round, with semi-finals and finals held at the state championship site. Team awards will still be given at the regional championships.
The OSSAA clarified that only times from the A and B finals at the regional meets will count, so prelims swims will not push a swimmer through to state on their own.
In Oklahoma, the 21 biggest schools that sponsor swimming go into Class 6A, while everyone else goes into class 5A (currently 44 schools for boys, 47 for girls). The state has two regional sites for each class, divided geographically.
We attempted to contact several of the state’s coaches for comment but they declined.
Bartlesville (girls) and Norman North (boys) are the defending 6A State Championships by about 40 points each, while the Stillwater (girls) and Altus (boys) won their class last season by much more lopsided margins.
Regional meets will be held on February 5th and 6th and the state championship meet will run on February 19th and 20th.