2017 NCSA Age Group Championships
By Reach for the Wall staff.
As noted in a prior article, PVS age group swimmers (i.e., ages 10 & under, 11-12, 13-14) historically have focused on qualifying for Eastern Zones Age Group Championships (Zones) following the local PVS age group championship meet (e.g., Junior Olympics or JOs).
Increasingly, however, PVS clubs are sending their age group swimmers to “national” age group meets (instead of, or in addition to, Zones) in order to enable more kids on the team to participate in a post-JOs meet, to allow kids to swim in more events than they can at Zones, and/or to expose them to “national” competition from around the U.S. (vs. competition only from within the Eastern Zone). For PVS clubs, these “national” age group meets include the NCSA Age Group Swimming Championships in Orlando, Florida (March 21-24) and the NASA Showcase Classic in Clearwater, Florida (April 5-8).
The NCSA Age Group Champs in Orlando (the first of these national age group meets) starts today, and below is key information about this meet:
- Psych Sheet
- Estimated Timelines
- Prelims / Trials Timeline (pre-scratch)
- Finals
- Webcast / Live Streaming
- Meet Information Packet
PVS teams participating in this meet include:
- Herndon Aquatic Club Commanders (HACC)
- Machine Aquatics
- Nation’s Capital Swim Club (NCAP)
- Rockville Montgomery Swim Club (RMSC)
- Snow Swimming
If you are wondering, “what’s the difference between this week’s NCSA Age Group Champs and last week’s NCSA Junior Nationals?”, the former is for qualified age group (i.e., younger) swimmers while the latter is (mostly) for qualified high school swimmers (swimmers like 12 year old Claire Tuggle are the exception).
Good luck to those PVS swimmers at NCSA Age Group Champs. We will periodically check in on their progress over the next 4 days.