A puzzling 400 free relay!

@weedwacker2000 wrote:

Last weekend’s swim meet between Chatham and Grove City was extremely close throughout, with several lead changes. The Grove City women had a one point lead going into the final relay. Here are the results of the 400 FR

Event 16 Women 400 Yard Freestyle Relay

1 Grove City College ‘A’ 3:46.04 11
1) Keefer, Ellen SR 2) Brunk, Katie FR
3) Baur, Lauren FR 4) Page, Sarah FR
27.45 56.85 27.14 58.38 26.45 56.05 25.62 54.76
2 Chatham University ‘B’ 3:46.88 4 1) Kintzer, Renee FR 2) Betz, Sarah SR
3) Pawl, Casey JR 4) Williams, Rachel SR
27.84 57.85 27.34 57.03 26.81 57.42 25.88 54.58
3 Grove City College ‘B’ 4:10.01 2 1) Douglas, Tiffani FR 2) Wiedeman, Ruth JR
3) Smiddy, Rebecca JR 4) McRuer, Liza JR
29.45 1:01.43 30.70 1:04.08 29.98 1:03.08 28.97 1:01.42
4 Chatham University ‘A’ 4:42.51 1) Sindler, Sarah FR 2) Mummert, Chelsea FR
3) Hicks, Carly FR 4) Kuuskoski, Amy SO
30.90 1:04.32 33.43 1:11.14 32.08 1:11.05 35.36 1:16.00

What is puzzling to me is the Chatham “A” team. Did the first swiimmer just have a bad swim? perhaps she was injured, or maybe she just missed a flip turn? Once she was so far behind, it appears that the coach may have told the others to just finish out without pushing themselves. Maybe he hoped that the “B” team would win and thus give Chatham the meet victory.

Personally I wonder if the rest of the “A” team should have least tried to finish well. Mummert, Hicks and Kuuskoski are all decent swimmers. Or maybe the coach thought that they were going to be DQ’ed anyway, but weren’t.

Does anyone out there closer to the action have any answers?

did any of those girls on the A team post significantly faster times during the meet? even if someone missed a flip turn, i can’t imagine a coach telling their swimmers to dog a race. if i dogged a race just cause we were behind, my coach would have my swimming a LOT of extra lactate sets during the week.

im guessing it was just a case of the coaching making the “B” team his “A” team. happens all the time. the other teams “A” team is in lane 4, your “B” team is in lane 3. they still race each other.

Maybe they were looking to surprise Grove City with some “Outside Smoke.” What do you think, moderator 😆

Looks to me like the relay names were put in wrong – I noticed Betz went 31.89 in her 50 but went 27.34 on the front half of her 57.03 split. I also don’t think Rachel Williams went 1:13 in the 100 open and then split a 54 anchoring the relay. That looks like something Kuuskoski (2:01 200) could have done instead of the 1:16 she supposedly anchored in.

Two other things:
1. the Chatham record was set by the four women on the “B” relay barely over a second faster than the “A” relay went. I doubt a program in its third year has eight women that fast.
2. There was no “A” medley relay for Grove City (just a B,C, and D). Maybe there was some kind of glitch with the software.

Actually, here is the scoop. 🙂 The GCC team did not have an “A” relay due to the outdated MM Software Chatham was using, which would not allow the “A” relay to be imported. The Free relays for Chatham were reversed on the print out, but not in the software. Their “A” relay names were actually listed on the results as their “B” relay. Their “B” relay names were on their “A” relay. Outdated software… MM version 1.2…..should be using MM 2.0 🙄

For these meets against Chatham do the men go and just do glorified lactade sets or do they stay home and practice? I’m not sure which I would rather do

I would guess that the men stayed home and practice, but I’m not positive. I think they’d get more out of racing eachother in practice than traveling and racing eachother at Chatham.

@gccswimmer16 wrote:

I would guess that the men stayed home and practice, but I’m not positive. I think they’d get more out of racing eachother in practice than traveling and racing eachother at Chatham.

Kinda like the teams that have to swim Wabash. I’m surprised that that they didn’t try to get another team in to at least make it a Tri for the women and a dual for the men