Recognize that the minimum number of kids to fill all lanes in an a meet is 60, split evenly between boys and girls. So teams of less than 100 are going to tend to have most kids swimming the a meet

We are in a top 5 division and have approaching 200 swimmers. We never swim empty lanes. We also don’t refer to a meet swimmers or b meet swimmers. We have about 40 kids who are always in the a meet. Another 40 or so who float in and out from week to week. Then about 100 who are never in an a meet. But who the 40 floaters are changes a lot from year to year.

We have been on two teams since age 5. The first started out in a top 5 division and fell far when a few swim families moved. The second has been a top three team for the past four years. I feel like the 8Us are a crap-shoot depending on who joins/whose siblings start club swim early. At our relay carnival last night, teams you might expect to have fast 8Us don’t and others did. It’s surprising how the big 3 D1 teams masterfully replenish their 8Us every single year with 10+ year wait lists, but otherwise, the remaining 99 teams seem to have 8Us that rise and fall. All of that is to say, you really can’t predict what will happen with the little kids and whether your child will swim A meets and relays. You should be able to “scout” the older divisions, though, both by looking at times published by NVSL and by looking at their club times.

Anonymous wrote:Division 12
Looking back at last weekend I counted 32 empty lanes for individual events base on the posted results.

You also have to factor in dqs--a lot of teams put in kids who are "close" in breast and fly as the littles but they end up being disqualified.

We are in a double digit division and we have age groups (mostly the older age groups) where everyone who is legal in a stroke gets to swim an A meet because we need bodies. Not everyone gets to swim a relay. However, our younger age groups (12&u), it's quite competitive to get a spot in an A meet and we have some year round swimmers at the bottom of the age group who don't make every A meet. It's really team dependent though--that's not the case across our division.

Edsal Park really small team.

North Springfield, great team, desperate for kids to join. Need to fill lanes.

Broyhill Park would love to have swimmers.

A lot of teams needs swimmers and have empty lanes in the lower divisions.

Anonymous wrote:Division 12
Looking back at last weekend I counted 32 empty lanes for individual events base on the posted results.

We are D12 and don't swim empty lane for the little kids.

I'm not really sure how we stack up in team size, but we're in a lower division (div 12-15).

At the younger ages, if you can swim breast or fly legally, or even close to it, you're in an A meet. We often have an empty lane in the 8U or 9-10.

11-12 and 13-14 is where we have the most kids, so not everyone gets into A meets. There are a few consistent A meet kids, a majority of slots that rotate between kids depending on the last B meet results or who is on vacation, and a few kids that consistently stick with B meets.

15-18 year olds are more likely to start specializing in one activity or another, so those who don't swim in A meets tend to drift away into other activities. Those who stick with it will generally swim at least some A meets, maybe not every one. Our 15-18 group is consistently smaller than the 13-14 group despite having a 3-year age range.

Anonymous wrote:We are a mid-tier large team that doesn’t have an A team and a B team. About one third of our team swims at a given A meet, but for that last spot in each stroke there can be movement based on ladder movement or kids being out of town. I’d say probably a quarter of our kids make all A meets, relay carnival, divisionals.

Probably close to 60% are solely B meet swimmers.

DP
We also don’t refer to swimmers as A or B meet swimmers. Last few years we’ve been between divisions 15-12. 30-35 empty lanes isn’t unheard of.

How “large” is large? We have about 90 I think when we don’t count the minis, so I know we aren’t large.

We are a mid-tier large team that doesn’t have an A team and a B team. About one third of our team swims at a given A meet, but for that last spot in each stroke there can be movement based on ladder movement or kids being out of town. I’d say probably a quarter of our kids make all A meets, relay carnival, divisionals.

Probably close to 60% are solely B meet swimmers.

Anonymous wrote:We have been between Division 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 and it’s rare there are empty lanes, but it does happen.
Some ages groups are bumping and sometimes we have hardly any. We are a heavy military community and people move around a lot.

Do most of your swimmers get to swim A meets? We are in a double-digit division and almost all of our swimmers get to swim at least one event in an A-meet, even if it's swimming up to fill an empty lane. I'm wondering at what division that stops and there becomes more of a divide between "A meet" and "B meet" swimmers. It's something people say on here a lot, but we don't have that concept on our small team.

We have been between Division 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 and it’s rare there are empty lanes, but it does happen.
Some ages groups are bumping and sometimes we have hardly any. We are a heavy military community and people move around a lot.

Division 12
Looking back at last weekend I counted 32 empty lanes for individual events base on the posted results.

Our team has varied between Division 13 and 15 since we joined. DD has been swimming A meets since she was 6 and DS 7. This year, we only seem to have 2 9-10 girls who swim at meets, so we have a lot of empty lanes for that age group.

There are 14+ 9-10 boys, but only 6 or 7 make A meets. Even of that, there are really only two strong swimmers in the age group. I had a frustrated DS after relay carnival tonight because 2 kids can't carry a relay team.

If you're on a team small enough that most swimmers get to swim A meets, what division are you in? And do your A meets have a lot of empty lanes? Just curious.