Small School State redux -- is D2 getting faster?

The Small School State Invitational provides a good preview of the Division 2 state meet to be held Feb. 19. The field is deep, with 19 teams, and most of the top D2 teams attend (with the notable exception of Madison Edgewood). Although it doesn't include a number of solid swimmers who will almost certainly end up at the state meet, it includes a broad enough range of swimmers to provide a decent picture of what's to come in D2 in the next few weeks.

So I thought it worthy to compare some of the times from this year's Small School State Invite to those of last year's meet. It's safe to say that this year's meet was faster, both in terms of the winning times and in the depth of faster times swum. Times compared were: 1st-place times, 6th-place times (the place needed to be recognized on the starting blocks at the meet hosted at Plymouth), and 16th-place times (the last place to score points). Based on the comparison:

-- Nine of the 11 winning times this year were faster than last year.

-- Nine of the 11 6th-place times this year were faster than last year.

-- All but one of the 16th-place times this year was faster than last year.

In addition, the small number of slower times this year were slower by the barest of margins. For instance, the 100 breaststroke this year was won by McFarland's Jacob Mandli in 1:01.69; last year's winning time by Delavan-Darien's Nathan Johnson was 1:01.61. The same held true with this year's 6th-place time in the 200 free (.06 seconds slower this year than last year) and the 16th-place 200 free relay (.03 seconds slower this year than last year). Only the 400 free relay -- swum last year by a McFarland foursome that set the state's all-time D2 record at state -- stood out as considerably faster last year.

Events that looked noticeably faster this year included the 100 butterfly and the 500 free. This year, 11 swimmers broke 1 minute in the fly; last year, only five did. In the 500 free, the 6th-place time this year was more than seven seconds faster than last year's 6th-place time (Kiel's Nic Halverson dropped his time by more than 11 seconds in the 500 this year and improved only one place -- from 5th last year to 4th this year). Relays also looked generally faster up and down the board.

Whether this translates into faster qualifying times at sectionals in two weeks, or faster times at the D2 state meet, is hard to tell. There's still an open question about how times will be impacted by the ban on high-tech bodysuits, so much in vogue at last year's state meet (and to some extent at sectionals as well). We'll file a post on qualifying standards sometime in the next week.

Small School State time comparison by event (first time is 2010; second time is from 2009; times from 2009 in italics are faster than 2010):

1st place
200 medley relay: 1:39.46; 1:41.05
200 free: 1:45.75; 1:45.98
200 IM: 1:57.31; 1:59.01
50 free: 22.48; 22.75
100 fly: 52.11; 53.34
100 free: 48.92; 49.79
500 free: 4:45.65; 4:47.04
200 free relay: 1:28.96; 1:32.62
100 back: 53.19; 54.05
100 breaststroke: 1:01.69; 1:01.61
400 free relay: 3:22.28; 3:18.35

6th place

200 medley relay: 1:46.70; 1:47.71
200 free: 1:53.27; 1:53.21
200 IM: 2:05.61; 2:06.71
50 free: 23.38; 23.43
100 fly: 57.79; 1:00.07
100 free: 50.90; 50.61
500 free: 5:04.45; 5:11.85
200 free relay: 1:35.44; 1:36.69
100 back: 56.48; 57.13
100 breaststroke: 1:04.19; 1:05.23
400 free relay: 3:29.58; 3:29.90

16th place

200 medley relay: 1:58.88; 2:00.10
200 free: 1:58.37; 1:59.17
200 IM: 2:12.64; 2:17.48
50 free: 24.57; 25.02
100 fly: 1:01.52; 1:05.05
100 free: 53.52; 53.96
500 free: 5:20.79; 5:26.74
200 free relay: 1:43.56; 1:43.53
100 back: 1:02.24; 1:03.01
100 breaststroke: 1:08.24; 1:09.44
400 free relay: 3:45.03; 3:54.05

True fanatics (and I know you're out there) may want to peruse last year's Small School State results here (see this post for this year's results:
http://wiscswim.blogspot.com/2010/01/spartan-err-small-school-state_30.html

Boys 09 Small School State Results -01!31!09