The state of Ohio’s top high school swimming talent will get an early opportunity to showcase their talent this weekend at the Southwest Ohio Swimming and Diving Classic.
In some ways, the meet is “bigger” than the Ohio state championships in that the field of competition and the event lineup are expanded.
The Southwest Ohio Classic runs non-high school events like the 400 IM, 1650 free and 50s of the non-free strokes. In addition, the meet is not divided by class, so swimmers from Division I and Division II compete directly against each other.
The result is a huge turnout of athletes. The Dayton Daily News reports that last year, the meet housed 2,900 swimmers from more than 100 different schools. Because of the huge participation numbers, the meet divides up prelims between nine different facilities ranging from the Countryside YMCA to Miami University. All qualifiers come together for finals at the University of Cincinnatti (diving) and St. Xavier High School in the evenings.
The meet will take place on Saturday and Sunday, with prelims at 8 AM, according to Cincinnatti.com.
St. Xavier appears to be the boys team to beat, with Division I state titles in 16 of the last 17 years. They’re led by Junior World Champs gold medalist Grant House. The Ursuline girls are in pursuit of a 6th-straight state title, led by Caroline Blood and Julia Moran.
Full meet results will be available here.
Stay tuned to SwimSwam.com for a full recap of all the weekend’s action.
While it’s a treat to see all the “top finishes” and witness new records, the real beauty of this meet (and others) is to see ALL levels of swimmers compete to the best of their abilities. The heart of the slowest swimmer is just as fierce as the heart of the first place swimmer.
Steve – While a touching sentiment, and I don’t know how it is in Ohio, but I coach in Texas, and I can tell you for a fact that the “heart of my slowest swimmers” is nowhere near as fierce as the “heart of my fastest swimmers,” nor are they competing to the best of their abilities.
Braden Keith- Yes it is true it was a touching sentiment. Everyone has their own opinion on the subject. Coming from a small town in Ohio I know the difference in training levels. Some high school swimmers only just start swimming when they are freshman. You may not be as excited as I am when I see a teammate who swam a 32 in the 50 free at the beginning of the year drop to a 25 by the end. Before I moved from my hometown in Wapakoneta, Ohio to Celina, OH I got to swim with a Texas state champ from Dallas. He was much faster than our fastest swimmer. Our best swimmer went a 22 low in the… Read more »
Wesley – I think you’ve missed the point. I have swimmers who show up 6-7 days a week for practice, give it their all, are looking for what they can do better, show up at every meet and give it their all. Some of those swimmers have been swimming their whole lives, and some just started in high school. Some are very fast, some are not.
I’m referring to the swimmers who show up to 2 practices a week, float through them, show up at meets, skip warmups and cool-downs, complain about their entries, cut out of meets early because they don’t really care about their teammates…those are the swimmers without heart.
Braden- Yes you are correct. I apologize i did miss that point. You are right there is a difference between those swimmers. I was blindsided by my own bias. All of my swimming career growing up in small towns where we are limited to hour to hour and a half practices 4 days a week I have envied big cities. I always face the kids from cincinnati and tell myself I am half as good as them now what would it be like if I had the same schedule.
Actually, only SOME of the State’s top talent will be at that meet.
While the SW Classic may be be an awesome meet, the FASTER swimmers will be up NORTH this weekend at the NE Classic in Canton and Akron! This includes a number of swimmers in Ohio’s NE District, as well as the Central and NW Districts.
Take exception? Well, take a look at the current State rankings on the site referenced above for the meet results. Clearly more of the #1 ranked Ohio Boys and Girls individual swimmers, relays and divers will be at the NE Classic….
Enjoy, should be a fun weekend!
St X also has 90 guys on the team. Not too hard to win when you have triple the numbers of anyone else AND are a private school.
St. Xavier has not won 32 consecutive state titles.
Columbus Saint Charles Preparatory School won the 2008 Ohio State Title.
Here is a link to the meet website: http://swimmeet.com/meets/classic16/
While the diving Finals are at UC, the swim finals are at St X, Keating Natatorium