Previewing the state D1 meet

State titles are won in the water, not on paper. But swimming, nearly unique among high school sports, allows fans to forecast the outcome of meets based on seed times of swimmers.

So here's how the top six teams are seeded for the state D1 meet this Saturday:

1) Hartland-Arrowhead -- 278 points
2) Waukesha South/Mukwonago -- 245
3) Muskego -- 189
4) Madison East -- 172
5) Wausau East -- 144
6) Madison Memorial -- 141

Observations:

-- There is little doubt the Waukesha South/Mukwonago sectional displaced the Middleton sectional as the fastest qualifying meet for D1. Last year, the top three teams coming into the state meet were Middleton, East and Memorial. This year, to the top three teams came out of the WS/M sectional. The majority (17 of 33) of the top-three seeds in each of the 11 events came out of the WS/M sectional.

-- It may be a tall order for WS/M to catch Arrowhead. The single best way to catch up to teams at the state meet is to improve the seed placing of relay teams, and hope the team ahead of you falters a bit, as relays are worth twice as many points. But WS/M already owns an eight-point advantage in terms of seeding over Arrowhead in the relays, and has two top-seeded relay teams (200/400 frees) -- in other words, WS/M can't go up much further. HA can, with its 200/400 free relays seeded 3rd and T-4th. Plus, HA qualified two divers for the state meet, while WS/M did not have any divers participate in the sectional meet. An early indication of the how the two teams will compete against each other will come in the 200 medley relay, where HA is seeded 1st and WS/M is seeded 5th.

-- HA's across-the-board strength is evident, and a key reason they are favored to win back the title they lost last year after five consecutive state meet wins. They are seeded to score in every single event, the only D1 team that can say that. WS/M has swimmers seeded to score in each of the 11 swim events; those swimmers will have to find a way to edge out their HA counterparts if they hope to catch and pass HA in the team race.

-- Madison East will have to get a big day out its relays if it hopes to catch either of the top two seeded teams. East won two relays last year on its way to garnering its first state title; their relays this year are seeded 2nd (both the 200 and 400 free relays) and 13th (medley). East at a minimum will also need sprinter Ruby Martin (seeded 1st in both the 50 and 100 frees) to hold her seed spots, and sophomore Aja Van Hout (defending state champ in the 200 IM and 500 free) to repeat last year's performance, to have a shot at defending.

-- Does Muskego have enough depth to edge their way past the top teams? The team had an outstanding sectional meet, led by 200/500 free swimmers Brittany Walsh and Jessica Wolf, and freshman backstroker Emma Szczupakiewicz. But the team qualified only two relays for state, missing out on the 200 free relay.

-- As for Madison Memorial, they will hope to repeat their performance from last year, when they improved their seed placements more than any other team at the state meet. The Spartans will have to make up a lot of ground, however. They did qualify all 18 swimmers for the meet -- a first for the venerable program -- and showed last year that swimmers coming out of the second and even first heats of the meet can move up dramatically at the meet.