2017 California Interscholastic Federation Swimming & Diving Championships
- Prelims: Friday, May 19th
- Finals: Saturday, May 20th
- Clovis Olympic Swim Complex, Clovis West High School, Fresno, CA
- Meet Info
- Results
With the 2017 California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) section meets now concluded, the entries have been confirmed for the third annual CIF all-state swimming and diving championships. Some of the California high school stars wrapped up their seasons at the section meets and will now turn their attention to long course season. For example, the top five 200 girls’ freestylers from the combined CIF-Southern Section division meets (Ella Ristic and Samantha Shelton of Santa Margarita, Taylor Ault of Sonora, Katie Glavinovich of JSerra, and Kate Krolikowski of Woodbridge) will forego the state meet this year.
That said, there will be plenty of firepower in Clovis. Bryce Mefford of Oak Ridge is the top seed in the boys’ 100 fly and #2 in the 200 free, where he is seeded 1 second behind Northgate’s Alexei Sancov. Loyola’s Sean Lee is ranked first in the 200 IM and second to Mefford in the 100 fly. Sierra Canyon senior Nate Biondi is entered first in the 50 free and second in the 100 free, where Arcadia senior Tenny Chong leads the way. Chong, who won both the 50 free and 100 free at his section meet, only appears in the latter. Palo Alto senior Alex Liang is seeded second in both the 200 IM and 500 free.
Palo Alto senior Grace Zhao leads the field in the 200 IM and 100 breast, while Archbishop Mitty junior Cathy Teng is the top qualifier in the 100/200 freestyles. Crean Lutheran junior Elise Garcia tops the charts in the 50 free, just ahead of Menlo Atherton junior Izzy Henig; the pair are seeded third and second, respectively, behind Teng in the 100. Sunny Hills senior Courtney Tseng is entered with the fastest time in the 500 free, with Granada sophomore Miranda Heckman 8/10 back in second. Heckman also has the second-fastest entry time in the 200 free, while Tseng is ranked seventh in the 200 IM.
Click here to see the entries for the 2017 CIF State Championships.
Note: corrections to the 2017 CIF State Swimming & Diving Championship entries will be accepted until 12:00 noon on Monday, May 15.
CIF State Meet Qualifying Standards
As a reminder, the various California Sections may send swimmers and divers to the State Meet, using the following formula for each event:
- CIF Southern 5
- CIF North Coast 3
- San Diego 3
- CIF Sac-Joaquin 3
- CIF Central Coast 3
- CIF Central 2
- CIF Los Angeles 2
- CIF Northern 1
- CIF San Francisco 1
- CIF Oakland 1
At-Large Entries
Swimming: Once allocated automatic qualifying spots from each section are filled, sections may enter additional competitors provided they have met or bettered the “At-Large” Automatic or Consideration standard for their event in their Section Meet that qualifies athletes for the CIF State Swimming & Diving Championships. In the event that there are not 40 automatic qualifiers, consideration times will be used to fill each event to 40 qualifiers/relay teams. “At-Large” qualifying times must be achieved in Finals of the Section Championships.
Diving: No At Large Qualifiers. Each section will get one additional entry for diving.
As a HS coach in CIF SS D1 who has won multiple team titles I can tell you 1st hand that the meet will not take off until the meet is set up correctly. It should be the top 50 times in the state – no automatic qualifiers. End of story. They should have a webpage for the coaches to upload meet results and the state should update the top 50 every Monday and make it a big deal to the swimmers to qualify. Run it just like NCAA’s and the meet will explode. The top 24 come back for a second swim with the top 16 scoring. It should also be two weeks after sections so there is ample… Read more »
I am really impressed with the number of Freshman that are Seeded in the top three in many of the events. Can’t wait to watch them over the next three years!
There is no way to please everyone at a state level meet; especially in a massive (and very deep) state like CA. Honestly one week later is too close for swimmers attempting to “peak” at one meet or the other (between regional and state level meets). But on the flip side, CA isn’t going to change the sport seasons around to accommodate swimming being in an earlier or different season.
My hope is that coaches and programs buy in to the idea of the state meet as we continue to see the excitement of seeing the best CA has to offer in the pool together.
I understand the idea of a breakdown of entries from each section but in reality it does not work. Almost every event has swimmers who were automatically in due to their small CIF section that cannot come close to competing with the larger section swimmers. Perhaps this meet should be flighted to allow more swimmers to qualify and to equalize the competition for those from the smaller sections. Put top 40 qualifiers in “A” flight and then put the next 24 (including highest ranked small section swimmers) in a “B” flight. The small sections still get a chance to go to state championships but will have a better chance swimming against others with comparable times.
Actually, there is little different. from Division 1 and 2 in Cif Times/ Crean Lutheran beat Santa Margarita in the medley relay while Santa Margarita beat then in the 200 yard freestyle relay. Plus, lots of kids are good swimmers but not world team ability or Jr world team ability. They could have went to the state meet. The different is more in 3 and 4.
I think there needs to be some changes to the high school swimming model in order for a state meet to be more prestigious than the section meets. Unfortunately I don’t have the answers.
I’m in CA and it seems like very few swimmers have any type of emotional attachment to their school’s team. There is no comradery. Everyone’s attachment is with their club teammates and club coach and the kids often don’t even speak to their non-club teammates and their high school coach. They want to get on with their club meet schedule and don’t want the high school season to drag on.
The regular season needs to be shortened. This state meet is in late may and it… Read more »
I asked the question last year. Why so late in the season and why not in November like Florida or in March for example? I was told that the meets in California were outside and not indoor. Sure it’s too late and it shortens the already short long course season. There’s clearly something to change.
September/October/state meet in early November? Not possible? I’m not a Californian weather specialist.
Not possible because of water polo being as popular as it is in California. Can’t have both sports in the same season. Swimming and water polo would have to swap seasons and I don’t see that happening. It would make most sense for swimming to be in the fall though since it is the start of short course season.
The Northern Section does swim in the fall. The weather really isn’t an issue. The bummer part for our swimmers is they don’t get to participate in the State Meet because it’s out of season for us. It would be great if the whole State switched to the fall but I don’t ever see it happening.
In my experience my kids have all done faster times at the state meet than they did in their section meet.
Crean’s 400 free relay was quite a bit faster two years ago.
I’m just going off of stats I saw from last year.
Maybe one day all the best Californian high schoolers will swim against each other at the same meet, like in track and field….
Well some of them I can understand why they skipped the meet, but others not so much. Maybe, its too close to high school graduation. Crean Lutheran has most of their swimmers except Eva Merrill. They just have to figure which one of the breastrokers will swim backstroke in the medley relay.
Is high school or club priority? It’s the classic teenage swimming conundrum.
the mefford brothers are freakin’ studs.
Isn’t Grace Zhao a senior…?
a lot of the classes are incorrect