Central District

swimfan

Member
Does anyone know when Dublin Jerome started swimming and who the first coach was?

I think the Jerome girls are the only Dublin team to win a district title. Can anyone verify that?
 
 
Correct swimmer24. Jerome won the D2 girls in 2005. Granville was the runner up. In 2006 Jerome had moved up to D1. I can not recall the name of the coach.
 
So, who will be the teams that improve in 2014-2015? Who are the freshman to watch? What teams have lost the most? Will UA & SC restock with their incoming freshman?
 
Word is that UA has 2 or 3 freshman who will contribute - but not at the level that Kibbe did last year. Both Westerville South and Davidson will have at least one strong freshman. SC will have 3 or 4 possible contributors but nothing spectacular. It looks like New Albany will have at least one strong freshman.

Coffman & UA appear to have lost the most. SC has a lot back and should win the district. If they have a real strong year they could finish in the top 5 at the state meet. At the district level there's more balance making the scores closer. The days of UA or SC qualifying and scoring everyone are gone for now. However, don't see anyone assembling the necessary numbers to give either a serious challenge for the number 2 spot.
 
As usual you're selling the Bears short. UA did lose Trace, Newcome & Bass, but looks what's coming back. Hope SC thinks their on top for awhile. It will make UA's comeback all the better. And UA will have its strongest freshman class in a number of years joining the returners. UA will win the district AND finish top 5 in state! Count on it.
 
If you look at who was lost to graduation in terms of points from the State meet last year, it seems to me that Toledo St. Francis, St. Ignatius, and Upper Arlington lost by far the most. UA has some strong kids returning (as usual) but no one to replace Trace both in terms of his individual swims (1st - 50 free and 2nd - 100 back) and his critical contributions on the relays.

Anything is possible of course, but I don't see how in the world UA gets a sniff of the top 5 in the state this year.... they'd have to nearly double their point output from last year while losing the kids that provided more than half of those points!

Will UA be traveling to Mason this year for a dual? I thought I heard that after visiting your pool last year that this might become an annual event? I sure hope it does as UA is one of the few schools that is so good on both the boys and girls side that they can beat Mason in a dual meet.
 
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I think if you look sc is projected about 20 ahead of ua based on returning swimmers, ua has a good diver coming, Weimar and 3 contributing freshman wiener, voss, dimitrov sc has two at least coming gut an and shiyu also rumor is aslaner might be back which would be huge. Eddie Michael for Coffman and Nate stapler south are the best incoming freshman.

Also I think ua is heading to Mason in January making it a yearly meet.
 
Also I think ua is heading to Mason in January making it a yearly meet.

That's great news! I know the kids all worked hard at that dual meet last year (UA won both the boys and girls side). I think the Comets gave their best effort of the dual season though and when I asked why, I was told "because if we didn't swim our best we'd lose". That's not something we normally hear in the dual season which made it fun to watch.

I think if you look sc is projected about 20 ahead of ua based on returning swimmers, ua has a good diver coming, Weimar and 3 contributing freshman wiener, voss, dimitrov...

This kind of supports my point actually... The swimmers you list are all solid freshman but looking at their times available for LCM JO's this weekend and in SCY from March, none of these guys are likely to make it to state, let alone score there in 2015 (no shame in that, it takes an extraordinary freshman to score at State in Ohio).

UA will win the district AND finish top 5 in state! Count on it.

Don't know about District placement, but I think UA actually takes a step back from their 9th place finish last year at State.
 
also rumor is aslaner might be back

Had not heard that. How reliable is your information? If correct that will not only improve SC's swimming prospects but will be a major step toward winning their 4th state title in water polo. With or without Aslaner SC remains the favorite for the district swimming crown. At best its a wash between SC's expected freshman & UA's.
 
Remember UA had one relay DQed.

Even if the relay's not DQed, UA was not in the top 5 last year. The only state qualifier outside of the relays whose back is Reardon. So, as usual rjones is overstating the prospects for this season. Based on last year, the only other swimmer with a shot at qualifying for the state is Kibbe and absent significant time improvement, he will not make top heat. Although UA may qualify all relays, top heat is unlikely for any. So it appears that Zfish has it right when he says that next year UA will likely step back from their 9th place state finish. There's virtually no way for UA to win the district.
 
Just heard that OSU will host the Women's Big Ten the week of the district. Will the district meet go back to OU or will they use Denison? Either way I would imagine that they will split Boys & Girls in each division. I don't think OU or Denison has enough spectator space for both. Also, OHSAA is requiring all the districts to conduct their meets on the same day. I think that means D2 is on Friday & D1 is on Saturday. Anyone know specifics for this year's meet?
 
Just heard that OSU will host the Women's Big Ten the week of the district. Will the district meet go back to OU or will they use Denison? Either way I would imagine that they will split Boys & Girls in each division. I don't think OU or Denison has enough spectator space for both. Also, OHSAA is requiring all the districts to conduct their meets on the same day. I think that means D2 is on Friday & D1 is on Saturday. Anyone know specifics for this year's meet?

Districts will be at OU this year. D2 on Friday at 10 am and D1 on Saturday at 230pm. Ou womens team has practice in afternoon on Friday and thats the reason for the earlier start time. Both genders are swimming together. I dont know how OU will hold everyone. When the meet was swum there from 05 to 08, d1 boys was Friday am, d2 girls sat am and d1 girls sat pm. I remeber pool.deck being crowded then.
 
Not only will deck space be tight, but how many spectators can they fit. My memory is that with one sex swimming it was pretty full. If Friday is the problem, then swim in the morning and in the evening. That would not disrupt the OU girls. Saturday they could do the same or even afternoon and evening.

By the way, confirmed that Aslaner is back to finish his senior year at SC. That should improve both SC's water polo & swimming prospects.
 
Not only will deck space be tight, but how many spectators can they fit. My memory is that with one sex swimming it was pretty full. If Friday is the problem, then swim in the morning and in the evening. That would not disrupt the OU girls. Saturday they could do the same or even afternoon and evening.

By the way, confirmed that Aslaner is back to finish his senior year at SC. That should improve both SC's water polo & swimming prospects.

I agree on seating, it has to be less than OSU (1000?). There wasn't enough deck space for th Athens hs invite, teams were seating with the spectators.

The district meets were definitely crowded especially d1.

There is a gym right off of the pool in Grover Building they might utilize; however, a class might be utilizing it for Friday.

A split gender meet has worked there in the past.

The other question. Will the qualifiers per event get bumped to 32? It was 32 when the meet was swum there in 06 to 08. 4 heats of 8. Im not sure if it's still an 8 lane competition pool or if they expanded to 10 lanes.
 
I agree on seating, it has to be less than OSU (1000?). There wasn't enough deck space for th Athens hs invite, teams were seating with the spectators.

According to the website, OU seats 1105; Denison depending on which site you look at seats anywhere from 800 to over 1000; and OSU again depending on the website seats 1400 to 1750 in the spectator section and has room on deck for 1300.

In the last several years the D1 meet has had a standing room crowd and that's with seating in the dive well and along the none competition part of the pool. D2 is getting to that point. Each year it seems as though the meet gets a bigger crowd.

While OU may seat 1000, part of those seats are along the none competition part of the pool. If as they have in the past, diving is held elsewhere that will reduce the crowd some. Denison seems similar in size but the seating configuration is better (3 sides of the completion pool, like Canton). Of course some of the seating capacity is the area along the diving well and along one side of the none competition part of the pool. Not clear about the amount of deck space at Denison - but certainly less than OSU.

Regardless, it's unfortunate if they don't split the meets as the spectators will suffer. Also, if they qualify 32 instead of 30 that will increase the number of participants and spectators. Hopefully, the District Board will take all this into account when planning the meet. Obviously, splitting the meets will entail an increase in pool rental - but based on the past costs of OSU it would seem that the District can afford the rental.
 
From what I have heard it will stay at 30 qualifiers, if I'm not mistaken wasn't the last year at ou combined boys and girls d1?
 
Frankie is correct, all the OU meets were separate sessions for Boys & Girls. Of course there was only one division for the boys. And remember before OU the meet was at OSU's old natatorium which definitely had no deck space. Teams were in the spectator area. If they don't split the sexes then get there early to get a seat.
 
Hey Frankie, since you seem to have an inside track, is the decision to keep the D1 & D2 meets combined a certainty? It would seem that crowding is a significant issue that separating the boys & girls in each division easily solves. And although OU is a very good site, I suspect that Denison is a faster pool. It's location is certainly more convenient to most of the district. Do you know if the possibility of holding the meet there was explored?
 
What I heard was Denison turned it down didn't want to host a second big meet right after NCACs. CDAB tried to go there from what I heard.
 
Too bad that Denison didn't want to host. That would be more convenient for Columbus area teams, although with the bypass in place around Nelsonville it's a much easier drive to Athens. Before the traffic champ in Nelsonville was horrid after the meet.

Looking at the times this summer, it looks like there will be some strong swimmers in this year's freshman class. Here's a list of year round swimmers (not sure all will be freshman). Would expect a larger number of freshman qualifying for district. Some of these will likely score in the district and one or two could qualify for the state meet.

Jason Mathews, Eddie Michael, Calvin Furbee, Ben Kuriger, Joel Serafy, Tommy Weimer, Gavin Voss, Michael Gutman, Thomas Clark, Jeremy Baggs, Jonathan Liu, Dominic Carifa, Everett Halverson, Jack McHugh, Brian Kray, Joshua Bowers, Griffin Beam, Pearson Spychalski, Nate Stadler, Patrick Pema, Max Dreisbach, Patrick Mahoney, Jacob Eismann, Andrew Shyu, Alec Caswell, Jack Campbell, Spencer Tussing, Francisco Soto, Jeff Hansen, Theodore Dimitrov, Tommy Dilz, Jimmy Ravine, Ben Neff, Graham Carpenter, Zach Parkman, Matt Shepard, Andy Shepard, Reid Newman, Harvey Culbert, Michael Lewis, Mason Reid, David Coss, Andrew Bernsdorf

Anyway, not surprisingly, as the number of club swimmers grows so does the depth of the district. The future looks bright.
 
Freshmen from any district in the D1 state meet are a rare occurrence. In the last 10 years the Central District has only qualified 9. Of those 9, only 4 have scored points - Jacob Griffith, Gabe Whitaker, Tim Collins, and Joey Long. Test yourself and see if you can come up with the year, event, place and the school for each. Two became state champions but only one in the event he scored in as a freshman.
 
Freshmen from any district in the D1 state meet are a rare occurrence. In the last 10 years the Central District has only qualified 9. Of those 9, only 4 have scored points - Jacob Griffith, Gabe Whitaker, Tim Collins, and Joey Long. Test yourself and see if you can come up with the year, event, place and the school for each. Two became state champions but only one in the event he scored in as a freshman.

That's great information Dutchman! I like to have data like that whenever people talk about their incoming freshman scoring at the State Meet.

This past season, a grand total of 4 freshman boys MADE IT to state (in a total of 6 events). Three of them collectively managed to come in 1st, 1st, 2nd, 9th, and 16th in their particular events... and everyone saw House and McDonald coming.

The bottom line is, if you aren't one of the extreme few who are already utterly dominant in the 13-14 year old ranks, you aren't going to jump into high school and suddenly become a State-level scorer. It's just too competitive in Ohio for that to happen and teams depending on freshman scoring for team placement are very likely to be disappointed.
 
Zfish, you are so correct. Just by the numbers in 2014 D1 meet. Seniors swam 83 events, juniors 69; sophomores 34 & as you point out freshmen 6. Although the numbers vary from year to year the participation in the state meet is always dominated by upperclassmen. Although I don't have specific numbers for the upperclassmen, here's what I have for freshmen through the years.

2013 - 5 events; 5 swimmers
2012 - 9 events; 8 swimmers
2011 - 5 events; 5 swimmers
2010 - 8 events; 5 swimmers
2009 - 7 events; 7 swimmers
2008 - 5 events; 4 swimmers
2007 - 7 events; 6 swimmers
2006 - 9 events; 9 swimmers
2005 - 8 events; 8 swimmers
2004 - 4 events; 3 swimmers
2003 - 7 events; 6 swimmers
2002 - 13 events; 10 swimmers
2001 - 9 events; 5 swimmers
2000 - 8 events; 8 swimmers
1999 - 12 events; 10 swimmers
1998 - 10 events; 9 swimmers
1997 - 16 events; 13 swimmers
1996 - 16 events; 15 swimmers

So for the last 20 years freshmen have been the minority in the state meet as would be expected. Even more unusual is for a freshman to qualify in 2 events. Of the 144 freshmen who have qualified in the last 20 years, only 24 did in 2 individual events. In the 2000s the numbers of freshmen qualifying have dropped which is indicative of the increase participation in swimming. Remember this is just the D1 boys. I suspect the numbers may be slightly higher in the girls and the D2 boys, but I would expect the freshmen to still be in the minority by quite a bit.

Looking at the list of incoming freshmen in the Central District, Coffman's Michael does seem to have a reasonable shot to make the state.
 
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