Anonymous
Post 07/12/2025 19:57     Subject: Re:Divisional seeding
Anonymous wrote:MCSL. Our coach decides who swims what at Divisionals, not our reps, parents, or swimmers. The goal is to stack the team to do as well as possible in the meet, not feed egos. Yes, a given kid can end up in 3 strokes, the IM, and one relay, but only if that is what is best for the team (and/or the kid has a chance at an All-Star or a record that won't set the team back).


Our MCSL team as well. It’s completely transparent. This year we have a couple of age divisions with only 1-2 good year round swimmers so it’s given those age groups the opportunity to spread the wealth a bit. There are 5-6 swimmers going rather than the norm of just 3 (2 swimming IM plus 3 strokes, 2 others swimming one stroke). I think its great.
Anonymous
Post 07/12/2025 18:48     Subject: Re:Divisional seeding
Anonymous wrote:Last year our coach asked the top 2 on the ladder overall to pick whatever events they wanted to and one kid ended up picking an event where she was 4th on the ladder (but only by a few milliseconds) and knocked out the person that was third entirely. It didn't seem right.


That is completely wrong
Anonymous
Post 07/12/2025 18:31     Subject: Divisional seeding
Anonymous wrote:I would love to see the rule changed in MCSL from 3 individual events plus IM to two max like in NVSL to make it more fun and inclusive, but suspect there would be a lot of pushback.

Maybe they could split the difference allow three events max. If it’s supposed to be a team ranking, it should include more of the team.
Anonymous
Post 07/12/2025 16:52     Subject: Divisional seeding
I would love to see the rule changed in MCSL from 3 individual events plus IM to two max like in NVSL to make it more fun and inclusive, but suspect there would be a lot of pushback.
Anonymous
Post 07/11/2025 16:44     Subject: Divisional seeding
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:MCSL Divisionals are different than NVSL and are more about deciding the team champion in each division. MCSL All-Stars have stricter limits.

Restricting events further in MCSL would have both positive and negative consequences. It would allow more kids from bigger teams to swim. It would mean that some smaller teams (especially in the older divisions) cannot fill their slots, or would have to fill slots with kids who have never swam an A meet all season.

It would also shift the outcomes of the Divisional meet towards bigger teams with more depth, which is not necessarily bad, but would be more akin to Relay Carnival where you need 4 or more quality swimmers in each age group to be super competitive.


I mean... it's two kids per event. The only way a team would have to seed kids who never swam an A meet is if they never had enough swimmers to fill an A meet, period. And in that case, it's highly unlikely they're at all competitive in their Division.

I don't necessarily think MCSL should restrict kids to two events. Even three, heck, four would be an improvement over five. If Divisionals is really about team strength, depth is an aspect of that. The way it's set up now, teams only need a few ringers to be competitive at MCSL Divisionals, which really doesn't emphasize the team aspect of summer swim.


This. Having one or maybe two kids dominate defeats the purpose of summer swim imo. In our case, we have a kid who’ll do all 5 events at MCSL Divisionals who hasn’t even shown up to a single team practice bc he’s swimming with his winter team. I think that’s demoralizing for the rest of the team.
Anonymous
Post 07/11/2025 15:00     Subject: Divisional seeding
Anonymous wrote:MCSL Divisionals are different than NVSL and are more about deciding the team champion in each division. MCSL All-Stars have stricter limits.

Restricting events further in MCSL would have both positive and negative consequences. It would allow more kids from bigger teams to swim. It would mean that some smaller teams (especially in the older divisions) cannot fill their slots, or would have to fill slots with kids who have never swam an A meet all season.

It would also shift the outcomes of the Divisional meet towards bigger teams with more depth, which is not necessarily bad, but would be more akin to Relay Carnival where you need 4 or more quality swimmers in each age group to be super competitive.


I mean... it's two kids per event. The only way a team would have to seed kids who never swam an A meet is if they never had enough swimmers to fill an A meet, period. And in that case, it's highly unlikely they're at all competitive in their Division.

I don't necessarily think MCSL should restrict kids to two events. Even three, heck, four would be an improvement over five. If Divisionals is really about team strength, depth is an aspect of that. The way it's set up now, teams only need a few ringers to be competitive at MCSL Divisionals, which really doesn't emphasize the team aspect of summer swim.
Anonymous
Post 07/11/2025 13:50     Subject: Divisional seeding
meant to say "especially in the older age groups"
Anonymous
Post 07/11/2025 13:49     Subject: Divisional seeding
MCSL Divisionals are different than NVSL and are more about deciding the team champion in each division. MCSL All-Stars have stricter limits.

Restricting events further in MCSL would have both positive and negative consequences. It would allow more kids from bigger teams to swim. It would mean that some smaller teams (especially in the older divisions) cannot fill their slots, or would have to fill slots with kids who have never swam an A meet all season.

It would also shift the outcomes of the Divisional meet towards bigger teams with more depth, which is not necessarily bad, but would be more akin to Relay Carnival where you need 4 or more quality swimmers in each age group to be super competitive.
Anonymous
Post 07/11/2025 10:18     Subject: Divisional seeding
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:In MCSL they can swim more than two events. I wish they could only swim two. More kids would be able to swim at divisionals. It feels like it’s always the same kids who get to go.


+1 We have one 8U kid who will do 3 strokes & the IM, so it really only leaves one spot in the usual events for another swimmer. Kinda stinks.

+2 I wish MCSL had stricter limits, too. Maybe up to three events, but five is too many. And my kids swim year round, usually go to Divisionals, etc. - other people should get the chance. It's summer swim.


+3 with kids who swim year round. I'd be much happier if kids maxed out at 2 events and more swimmers could swim in A meets/Divisionals.

The number of swims allowed per swimmer in MCSL definitely furthers the perception of there being an A meet team and a B meet team. I will anonymously admit though that I kind of liked it because it meant we only had to go to A meets and didn’t have to deal with the slog of B meets or having to go to both meets.
Anonymous
Post 07/11/2025 10:15     Subject: Re:Divisional seeding
Anonymous wrote:MCSL. Our coach decides who swims what at Divisionals, not our reps, parents, or swimmers. The goal is to stack the team to do as well as possible in the meet, not feed egos. Yes, a given kid can end up in 3 strokes, the IM, and one relay, but only if that is what is best for the team (and/or the kid has a chance at an All-Star or a record that won't set the team back).

Where MCSL is different for this purpose is Divisional times aren’t the only times used for All Stars. In MCSL any A meet time can be used for All Stars, it doesn’t have to be achieved in Divisionals.
Anonymous
Post 07/10/2025 18:46     Subject: Divisional seeding
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:In MCSL they can swim more than two events. I wish they could only swim two. More kids would be able to swim at divisionals. It feels like it’s always the same kids who get to go.


+1 We have one 8U kid who will do 3 strokes & the IM, so it really only leaves one spot in the usual events for another swimmer. Kinda stinks.


In MCSL they can do four events at divisionals? That’s crazy. In CSL they can do three max including IM. One of my kids is at the top of their age group and top 3 in every event, so it’s hard deciding which three to pick. The other one is at the bottom of the age group and 4th on the ladder on 3 events. Whether or not they get a spot depends on what the top kids decide to swim.


Five events. They can do five events. It really sucks.

Responding to a different PP - I’d get behind restrictions on swimming kids up, absolutely. We’re losing the point of summer swim the way MCSL does it.
Anonymous
Post 07/10/2025 13:17     Subject: Divisional seeding
I would get behind restricting MCSL swimmers to two events, but we’d need some kind of rule like the one we have for swim ups: permissible ONLY if the available swimmers in the age group are maxed out.

I wouldn’t want to penalize a lower division team with too few kids in an age group.
Anonymous
Post 07/10/2025 13:09     Subject: Divisional seeding
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:In MCSL they can swim more than two events. I wish they could only swim two. More kids would be able to swim at divisionals. It feels like it’s always the same kids who get to go.


+1 We have one 8U kid who will do 3 strokes & the IM, so it really only leaves one spot in the usual events for another swimmer. Kinda stinks.

+2 I wish MCSL had stricter limits, too. Maybe up to three events, but five is too many. And my kids swim year round, usually go to Divisionals, etc. - other people should get the chance. It's summer swim.


+3 with kids who swim year round. I'd be much happier if kids maxed out at 2 events and more swimmers could swim in A meets/Divisionals.
Anonymous
Post 07/10/2025 13:06     Subject: Re:Divisional seeding
MCSL. Our coach decides who swims what at Divisionals, not our reps, parents, or swimmers. The goal is to stack the team to do as well as possible in the meet, not feed egos. Yes, a given kid can end up in 3 strokes, the IM, and one relay, but only if that is what is best for the team (and/or the kid has a chance at an All-Star or a record that won't set the team back).
Anonymous
Post 07/10/2025 12:58     Subject: Re:Divisional seeding
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Last year our coach asked the top 2 on the ladder overall to pick whatever events they wanted to and one kid ended up picking an event where she was 4th on the ladder (but only by a few milliseconds) and knocked out the person that was third entirely. It didn't seem right.

That actually isn’t right and completely defeats the purpose of having a ladder.


It also makes no sense for the swimmer who chose this route. Normally kids at the top of the ladder pick the events they have the best chance to do well in (i.e., make All Stars or medal). In this case, the swimmer appears to have picked the event she was worst in. Just mind boggling all around, if true.