Conference Week: 10.31 to 11.5

Again, this is another long one.  There is a lot of information for Conference Week, so please read the whole post carefully.  If you have any questions/comments, don't hesitate to comment at the bottom of this post!


Important News/Notes

• As I mentioned last week, we need to make sure that we're doing everything we can to stay rested up throughout the week.  Get enough/extra sleep and avoid adding extra vigorous physical activities.  If you have a question about something that you're doing, employ the motto "when in doubt, leave it out".  For those who are taking PE classes right now, I have emailed Mrs. Sall and Ms. Zick requesting that you be allowed to sit out for physical testing, running, etc.
• Between warm up and the actual meet, each day of Conference will be 5+ hours long.  Each day, be sure to bring plenty of snacks and a couple water bottles or other drinks so that you can stay fueled-up throughout each session.  On Friday, we will be having a late lunch at the Jager's house once we get out of school.  Eat a lighter lunch during your normal school-lunch so you're ready to fill up at Jager's.  On Saturday, eat a good breakfast (much more than just a piece of toast!).  
• Each swimmer needs to bring a pair of comfortable, broken-in tennis shoes to wear on-deck during the meet on both Friday and Saturday.  Walking around barefoot on a hard-surfaced pool deck for five hours is more draining than you would expect.  Please clean the soles beforehand so we're not tracking dirt everywhere.

Conference Championships Info

• Location: Holland Aquatic Center
• Teams: Our Conference is made up of Holland, Zeeland, Hamilton, and Muskegon.
• Prelims/Finals for Individuals: Our Conference meet is split up into two days: Prelims Friday and Finals on Saturday.  For individual events, on Friday, everyone will swim their two events.  On Saturday, there will be 3 heats of each event.    Each team is guaranteed to have to have their top 4 swimmers in each event return to swim on Saturday (since there are 5 teams, 20 swimmers total).  The last two heats are the scoring Consolation and Championship heats, respectively, made up of the Top 16 swims from Friday. The first heat of each event is a non-scoring "bonus" heat made up of the 4 remaining swimmers from the 20 guaranteed and then the next 4 fastest individuals from Friday, regardless of the team.  
• Relays: On both Friday and Saturday, there will be a heat of the B relays followed by a heat of the A relays.  
• Diving: Divers will do 8 dives for prelims on Thursday evening.  They will complete their final 3 dives on Saturday in the normal diving spot of the meet.
• Scoring Breakdown (descending by place):
• Relays (A relays only): 40, 34, 32, 30, 28
• Championship Finals (Top 8): 20, 17, 16, 15, 14, 13, 12, 11
• Consolation Finals (9-16): 9, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1
• Note: if a swimmer qualifies for the Consolation Finals (9-16) but swims a time on Saturday that would make the top 8, she still receives 9th place.
• Saturday Awards: On Saturday, there will be an award ceremony for the Championship Finalists from each event and the  A relays.  This will occur after the Consolation heat of the following event.

Monday (10.31)

• Conference swimmers out at 5:15pm; State swimmers out at 5:45pm.

Tuesday (11.1)

• Conference swimmers out at 5:00pm; State swimmers out at 5:30pm.

Wednesday (11.2)

• Pictures Immediately After School
• We will meet at the West end of Main Street (across from the cafeteria) so that Mr. Alexander can take pictures of both the whole team and each class (freshmen, sophomores, etc.).
• Please bring your warm up top with you to school so we can all wear them for the pictures.
• Conference swimmers out at 5:00pm; State swimmers out at 5:45pm.

Thursday (11.3)

• Conference swimmers will be out of the water by 4:30pm to shave down.  Bring your shaving supplies!
• State swimmers will be out of the water by 5:00pm.
• We will be having team pasta dinner in Multipurpose Room A after practice.  Those in choir will have plenty of time to eat and get to the concert.
• Diving Prelims:
• Warm Up starts at 3:00pm.  Meet starts at 5:00pm.
• Stands open at 3:30pm. 

Friday (11.4)

• Dress: team sweatshirts and t-shirts.
• We will be excused from school after 7th hour.  Communicate with your 8th-hour teachers AHEAD OF TIME to get the work you will miss.  Work due for your 8th-hour class on Friday still needs to be turned in ON FRIDAY, so arrange for that as well.
• From school, we will head to the Jager's house for a meal.  Please bring $3.00 to cover the cost of the meal.  Afterwards, we will head to the pool for devotions and warm up.
• Warm Up starts at 3:00pm.  Meet starts at 5:00pm.
• Stands open at 3:30pm.  

Saturday (11.5)

• ALL swimmers, regardless whether they qualified to swim on Saturday or not, need to be on-deck BY 10:00am for devotions and Warm Up.
• Warm Up starts at 10:00am.  Meet starts at 12:00pm.
• Stands open at 10:30am. 
• After the meet, we will be having a team dinner at Village Inn Pizza at 5:00pm.  Please RSVP with Christy Wierda (cncwierda@sbcglobal.net) by this Thursday with the number of people that will be attending.