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Northern Virginia Swim League Wraps Up the Season With All Star Meet

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By Reach for the Wall Staff; All photos/media courtesy NVSL

July 29, 2023- Orange Hunt Pool

Throughout the 2023 summer season, the Norther Virginia Swim League (NVSL) media team was busy posting tons of great pictures and updates to their Twitter @swimnvsl and Facebook accounts. We think this Tweet (if they are still called tweets?) leading into the All Star meet captures the summer league excitement across the DMV:

As with their counterpart league in Montgomery County, the All Star meet is comprised on the top ranked swimmers for each event from the series of dual meets over the prior 5 weeks. The key differences between the leagues are NVSL invites 18 swimmers (3 heats of 6) while MCSL invites 16 (2 heats of 8), NVSL holds the meet at a neighborhood pool (rotating every two years**), MCSL holds their meet annually at the Rockville Municipal Swim Center and the order of events, NVSL starts with Butterfly, then the IM, Freestyle, Backstroke and ends with Breaststroke while MCSL starts with the IM, Freestyle, Backstroke, Breaststroke and ends with Butterfly. The full meet results can be found at the NVSL site: All Star Meet Results

**The Northern Virginia Swimming League evaluates potential host pool for its All-Star meets based on several criteria.  While many of the NVSL member pools have a great set-up “inside the fence” on the pool/deck area, there are many fewer that can provide the necessary team and parking areas that are required for the large meets with thousands of athletes and spectators.  The League works with prospective hosts to review their facilities and volunteers for at least a two-year host commitment and provides experience from previous hosts and League officials who help plan and execute the large meets (this includes Divisionals and Division Relay Carnivals as well) The League’s model now includes other teams offering volunteer help to lessen the burden on the host pool (e.g., contributing volunteers to run concessions, parking, etc.).  These large meets are the highlights of the NVSL season!

The NVSL enjoyed a super competitive season across all the divisions and we consistently saw NVSL meets crowding the list of top 20 closest meets. At the top of the league, Tuckahoe took the top spot in Division 1, with 5 dual meet wins (2nd time in 3 years)!

Old Keene Mill continued their streak of winning Division Championships with their 6th consecutive title, this season taking the top spot in Division 2!

In that span of 6 years, Old Keene Mill has gone 29-1, with the home winning streak dating back to 2015. We had a brief correspondence with them and they are poised to take on Division 1 next season!

Let’s do a quick breakdown of the dual meet season and how the pre-season favorites fared. Per the NVSL Handbook, meets are scheduled by seeding and the host team is determined by the Division Coordinator in conjunction with the Team Reps. However, the order of meets per week are determined by the pre-season Division rankings:


Week 1: 1 vs 4, 2 vs 5, 3 vs 6
Week 2: 1 vs 6, 2 vs 4, 3 vs 5
Week 3: 1 vs 3, 2 vs 6, 4 vs 5
Week 4: 1 vs 5, 2 vs 3, 4 vs 6
Week 5: 1 vs 2, 3 vs 4, 5 vs 6

With this schedule, many of the Division titles are destined to be decided in the final week of the season where the adjacent seeded teams compete. However, as we’ve seen in sports, what’s ‘on paper’ or what’s ‘expected’ to happen doesn’t always pan out. In fact, the only two top seed to go on and win the Division title were Waynewood in Division 10 and Hollin Hills in Division 16. Here’s the Division winners, their record and their pre-season seed in parenthesis:

Division1: Tuckahoe, 5-0 (2)
Division 2: Old Keene Mill, 5-0 (5)
Division 3: Hunt Valley, 4-1 (3)
Division 4: Oakton, 5-0 (4)
Division 5: Vienna Aquatic, 5-0 (2)
Division 6: Pinecrest, 5-0 (2)
Division 7: Springboard, 5-0 (4)
Division 8: Dominion Hills, 5-0 (3)
Division 9: Parklawn, 4-1 (6)
Division 10: Waynewood, 5-0 (1)
Division 11: Hollin Meadows, 5-0 (3)
Division 12: Forest Hollow, 5-0 (3)
Division 13: Brookfield, 5-0 (3)
Division 14: Shouse Village, 5-0 (2)
Division 15: Lincolnia Park, 5-0 (4)
Division 16: Hollin Hills, 5-0 (1)
Division 17: Pleasant Valley, 5-0 (2)

Another statistic we followed over the season was how well the home teams fared across the NVSL. Given that the handbook states that the home teams are determined by the Team Reps and Division coordinator, we wanted to see if there was any overt advantage for the host teams…here’s the results:

Week 1: Home teams had 26 wins
Week 2: Home teams had 25 wins
Week 3: Home teams had 31 wins
Week 4: Home teams had 25 wins
Week 5: Home teams had 32 wins

Out of 255 total meets, the home team won 139 times which is 54.5% of the time. This again demonstrates the parity across the league, where in weeks 2 and 4 the ratio of home teams winning was below 50%!

Individually and in the form of relays, there were many record-setting accomplishments for NVSL swimmers, starting in week 2 (quoted excerpts courtesy NVSL website):

“Congratulations to Nathan Lee, Henry Weeks, Tyson Wager, Atticus Henry of McLean for setting a new League record in the Boys 8 & Freestyle Relay at McLean today. They swam a 1:08.66, which breaks the old record of 1:09.10 set by Overlee on July 18, 2015.”

“Two New NVSL Relay Carnival Records!
Thu, 6-29-2023
The McLean 8 & Under boys, Nathan Lee, Henry Weeks, Tyson Wager, Atticus Henry, set both the Medley and Freestyle Relay Carnival Records. The McLean 8&U Boys 100 m. Medley Relay swam a 1:18.90 breaking the old record of 1:19.73 set by Tuckahoe on 7/17/2013. The McLean 8&U Boys 100m. Freestyle Relay swam a 1:08.52 breaking the old record of 1:08.72 set by Sleepy Hollow Bath on 7/15/1992.”

“New League Record Set in Week 3
Sat, 7-1-2023
Congratulations to Nathan Lee, Henry Weeks, Tyson Wager, Atticus Henry of McLean for once again setting a new League record in the Boys 8 & Freestyle Relay at Tuckahoe today. They swam a 1:07.95, which breaks the Sat Meet Record they set last week of 1:08.66 on June 24, 2023.“

“4 New Records Set in Week 4

Sun, 7-9-2023

4 NVSL Records all set 7/8/2023 at Kent Gardens Pool.

Girls 15-18  50 YARD Backstroke new time of 26.93 by Gloria Kuang of Kent Gardens.

 Old record 27.28 by Darby Galbraith of Vienna Aquatic CLub on 6/19/2021 at KG

Girls 15-18  50 YARDS Butterfly new time of 25.50 by Sophie Fredericks of Kent Gardens. 

 Old record 25.93 by Sophie Scadron of Sideburn Run on 7/3/2021 at KG

Boys 13-14 100 YARD Medley Relay new time of 49.44 by Mark Edwards, Jason Manning, Jayden Nam, and Ian Kang of Fair Oaks.

 Old record 50.50 by Jon Ballard, Casey Lockard, Grant Smith, and Jeff Clever of Tuckahoe in 1979

Boys 11-12  100 YARD Medley Relay new time of 57.04 by Marcus Scannapieco, Kingsley Chow, Aaron Kuang, and  Declan Nguyen of Kent Gardens.

Old record 58.40 by Roger Russell, Roger Williams, Jim Dickson, and Steve Mason of Vienna Woods swum at Tuckahoe on 8/3/1963.  ( This was the oldest NVSL Record.)”

“5 NVSL Relay Carnival Records were set 7/12/23 at the All Star Relay Carnival at Hamlet Pool.

Boys 8&U 100 Meter Medley Relay with a new time of 1:18.29 set by Atticus Henry, Henry Weeks, Nathan Lee, and Tyson Wager of McLean, breaking their Division Relay Carnival Record of 1:18.90.
Boys 8&U 100 Meter Freestyle Relay with a new time of 1:08.07 also set by Nathan Lee, Henry Weeks, Tyson Wager and Atticus Henry of McLean, breaking their Division Relay Carnival Record of 1:08.52. 

Girls 13-14 200 Meter Medley Relay with a new time of 2:03.87 set by Sadie Buckley, Lyla Devlin, Cally Codding, and Olivia Roca of Fairfax breaking the old record of 2:04.41 set by VAC on 7/20/2016.

Boys 15-18 200 Meter Medley Relay with a new time of 1:43.31 set by Nolan Dunkel, Isaac Bell, JT Ewing, Hunter Zipperer of Tuckahoe breaking the old record of 1:44.67 set by FMW on 7/18/2018.

Boys 15-18 200 Meter Freestyle Relay with a new time of 1:34.30 set by Hunter Zipperer, JT Ewing, Nolan Dunkel, Hugo Haggard of Tuckahoe breaking the old record of 1:34.94 set by FMW on 7/12/2017“

1 New Record Set in Week 5
Mon, 7-24-2023
One NVSL Record was set on 7/15/23 at Tuckahoe. 
Congratulations to the new record holders!! 
Boys 15-18 200 Meter Medley Relay new time of 1:43.20 by Nolan Dunkel, Isaac Bell, JT Ewing, and Hunter Zipperer of Tuckahoe.
Old record of 1:44.71 was set by Nolan Dunkel, Isaac M Bell, James T Ewing, and Emanuel L Rouvelas of Tuckahoe at Chesterbrook on 7.16.22

We’ve enjoyed seeing the meet results (Thanks NVSL for providing them on a weekly basis!) and social media postings from all the NVSL teams and look forward to 2024 for another exciting season!

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