Three Close Meets To Expect At the FHSAA 4A District Championships

FHSAA 4A District Championships

• Oct. 22-27, 2018
• District Sites/Dates
• 2017 4A State Series Results

The Florida High School 4A State Series will begin next week with the first round of championship meets. The 12 District championship meets will take place October 22-27. 4A is the largest of Florida’s 4 divisions of high school swimming in terms of size of member schools.

Many of these 4A programs will be looking to defend their titles from last year and even look forward to regionals and the 4A state meet. However, for some programs, the district meet is only the first of many battles they will face in the state series. Here are 3 team battles to expect in this year’s edition of the FHSAA 4A District Championships:

1. Buchholz Boys V. Mandarin Jacksonville Boys (District 1)

Last year, the Buchholz boys had a close battle with the Mandarin boys. The Buchholz boys took the title with 394 points, Mandarin Jacksonville settled for second with 355 points.

Despite scoring no swimmers in the top eight in 2 events and finishing 5th in the 200 free relay, Buchholz made up for it by winning the last 3 events of the meet to propel their scores. 

However, what makes this a battle is that this year the Mandarin boys could have more advantages coming into the meet. While Hill could definitely be one of Buchholz’s big scorers, the program also graduated a good number of seniors that scored big last year too. Mandarin has more returners this year than Buccholz, which definitely gave them a disadvantage last year having younger swimmers than Buccholz.

Can the Mandarin crew come back after a whole year of training and take down Buchholz?

2. Riverview Girls V. Palm Harbor Girls (District 6)

Before going into what could happen at this meet, take a look at the final scores between the girls of Riverview and Palm Harbor.

1. Riverview                408 points
2. Palm Harbor           406.5 points

Riverview only beat out Palm Harbor by 1.5 points. Is there anything more to say? Yes, there is.

When going through the top 16 in each event, Riverview had more wins while Palm Harbor had more depth. However, it almost seemed equal that Riverview and Palm Harbor had good scoring events as well as poor scoring events.

Will this year’s edition be just as close or will one of the teams break the gap?

3. Hialeah Gardens Girls V. Miami Beach/Coral Gables Girls (District 11)

Yet another close meet from last year, Miami Beach (419 points) had just beaten out Coral Gables (410 points) by only 9 points. However, Hialeah Gardens is also added into the equation, but not by their third place finish of 298 points. 

Hialeah Gardens won 7 events while Miami Beach and Coral Gables won 2 each. So how come Hialeah Gardens didn’t take the title? Depth. Hialeah Gardens had 4 events where they won the event but scored no one else, plus no swimmers in the 500 free.

Can the Hialeah Gardens girls take home a district title with their expected wins?

These battles and many other programs looking to defend their titles as the road to the 3A state championships begins next week.

Other 2017 Defending 4A District Champions:

• District 2: Seminole
• District 3: Winter Park
• District 4: Olympia Orlando
• District 5: Plant
• District 7: Jupiter
• District 8: Boca Raton
• District 9: St. Thomas Aquinas
• District 10: Cypress Bay
• District 12: Coral Reef