Free at younger ages is hard to make

If a 15-18 finishes in the top 30 after Divisionals, they have a really good chance to be scratched in for a variety of reasons including Futures is the same weekend as All Stars.

Sometimes 13-14 has a decent number of scratches but I also know someone who was 1st alternate in 50 fly and never got scratched in.

In 2021, I worked at IAS. The 15-18 boys Butterfly had at least two empty lanes. It was awful that they had no shows. We were contacting every team rep at the meet to find someone to fill the lanes.