We have talked some this season about Metros, but I want to take a second and provide more detail about the meet and the qualifying process.

Metros is scheduled for February 4^th – 7^th, with the Dive competition slated for Wednesday and Thursday (2/4 and 2/5), and the swim portion on Friday and Saturday (6^th and 7^th).

Metros is the Super Bowl of high school swimming in the DC area. The meet brings together the fastest kids in MCPS, along with competition from most of the DC, MD and VA private schools. Every year it proves to be one of the fastest HS meets in the country and the atmosphere is loud and electric, making it our most fun meet of the year. We want all team members to come out and experience the meet while supporting their teammates in the process.

Swimmers must qualify individually (2 event limit) to swim at Metros by achieving the meet cut times. I have attached last year’s cut times. They usually remain the same year over year. Cut times must be achieved in HS competition during the qualifying period, which will run from 2025 Metros (includes times from 2025 Regions and States) up to 2026 Metros. We will also enter 1 relay per gender for each of the 3 standard HS relay events.

There is one key caveat: We are only allowed to enter 4 swimmers per event in Metros. We have several events (Boys 50 Free, Boys 100 Fly, Boys 100 Breast to name a few) where more than 4 swimmers have the cut time. Here is how we will work through this, consistent with prior years:

• I collaborate with our swimmers and work down our top times list, starting with our top swimmers, to decide what 2 events give them the best chance to make finals and score points for the team.
• We will continue down the top times list to fill all the spots available to us in each event.
• It is important for those further down the list to have multiple cuts in case one of their events has more than 4 teammates ahead of them.

I have attached a top times report going back to last Metros with the top 10 swimmers in each event to provide perspective on how everyone ranks compared to their peers. Please note, the report does not let me remove last year’s Seniors from this query, so if you see Tyler, Alara, Elizabeth G., and Santi on the list you can disregard those results.

We have 1 month to go until Metros, so there is still time to achieve cuts and mentally prepare to be at our best for the biggest meet of the season.

Patrick