The National Club Swimming Association has grown significantly since it’s incorporation in 2013 and has taken another step to help the sport of swimming grow within the United States. Since 2013, the NCSA has hosted two Junior National Championship meets per year with time standards that are slightly slower than USA Swimming’s junior national time standards. This format has allowed for more team participation and provided another meet for swimmers that may not be able to swim a full meet at USA Swimming’s Jr National Championships.
The NCSA is taking another step to give the nation’s top age group swimmers a chance to gain experience competing at the highest level. Starting this March, the NCSA will be hosting a 14 & under Age Group National Championship Meet at the Orlando YMCA. The meet will start on Tuesday, March 22nd and continue through Friday, March 25th.
Cut times and the consolation finals will be geared towards the specific ages of the athletes. Swimmers at the bottom of each age group (9& under, 11, and 13) need “AA” time standards to qualify for the meet and the swimmers at the top of each age group (10, 12, and 14) will need “AAA” time standards to qualify for the meet. The finals of each event will feature the fastest eight swimmers from that age group in the A final. After that, there will be two consolation finals. The B1 final will feature the next 8 fastest swimmers in the top of the age group (12 & 14), and the B2 final will feature the next 8 swimmers at the bottom of the age group (11 & 13).
There will be timed finals for the 10 & under swimmers and prelim and finals for the 11-12 and 13-14 swimmers, with the exception of the 11-12 500 Free, 13-14 400 IM, 500 Free and 1650 Free. The entire meet will be run in short course yards and all relays will be timed finals.
Any swimmer that qualified individually can swim up to five bonus events and any relay only swimmer can swim up to bonus swims. The swimmers are limited to 10 individual swims over the course of the four day meet and are not allowed to swim more than three individual events per day. The bonus events are restricted to events 200 yards and shorter.
The time standards for the meet can be found below:
The NCSA said that the meet information packets for the Jr National and National Age Group spring championship meets are now complete and on are posted on their website. They are still working through a couple of the fine details for the Age Group Championship meet, but the majority of the meet is complete and firm (time standards, order of events, etc). The meet packet for the Age Group Championship meet can be found here. More information can be found on their website by clicking here.
These cuts are way too slow. Coming from a distance swimmer. For the sprint events.
We attended the NASA Age Group Showcase every year since its inception in 2010. It was an incredible experience for our 14&u swimmer and helped make him the great competitor he is today. Last year the timelines were getting pretty long, with only a couple of hours between prelims and finals. A few teams from our state aren’t returning this year because they thought NASA took too many entries. The Doyle Aquatic Center in Clearwater, FL is top notch though, and we are planning to return for the ISCA Junior meet in March 2016.
There is no reason for a National Level Meet for swimmers under 12. I hand it to them because they will attract a lot of swimmers and make a lot of money. The swimmers would be better off staying home and training. There are enough local meets to challenge swimmers that age and not put a financial burden on their parents.
As a kid (whose goal was always to make National Top 16), I always thought it would be cool to host a meet where the qualifying times were the NRT standard and then the finalists were the Top 16 for the year. From what I understand NRT’s are no longer, but the standards seem pretty slow for this meet. AAA cuts were what it took to qualify for Zones back in the day and there were numerous meets across the country. This meet could get very crowded very quickly especially with allowing bonus events.
Ugh another age group meet. There are too many meets and the kids want to go to all of them! Give coaches a break!
Two top 14&U AG meets (this one and NASA) in FL? Same week (weekend)? NASA is a great meet for 14&U swimmers. It seems NCSA is basically the same type of meet, i.e. single age prelim/final format, etc.
They are a week apart. The problem with NASA is if your team hasn’t historically been going to it then you are shut out. No matter how well qualified the swimmer is. My 9 year old as all AAA and several AAAA times. He couldn’t get into the NASA meet.
This should be an excellent way to make some money!
Where can we find the bonus standards?
From my understanding, there aren’t bonus standards. The swimmers can swim any event as bonus that is under 200 yards.