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The Woodlands swim teams ranked No. 1 in country
By MIKE TAYLOR
Sound the bagpipes and hail to the Highlanders.
Again.
The National Interscholastic Swimming Coaches Association has unveiled its 2008 National Dual Meet Team Rankings, and The Woodlands was crowned both the girls and boys national champions.
“It’s truly an honor to be associated with this type of program,” Woodlands coach Kent Kirchner said.
The NISCA rankings are compiled in a simulated dual meet format, and coaches from 36 states entered their teams this year. Points are awarded based on three individuals’ performances in nine events and two relay teams’ performances in three events.
The Woodlands girls racked up 6,101 points and the boys tallied 5,812. The point totals are extracted from a ratings system called Power Point tables, which values a five-second win more than a win of one one-hundredth of a second, for instance.
“Five thousand points is a damn good team. Six thousand is extraordinary,” said NISCA Power Point coordinator Paul Torno, who is charged with compiling the team rankings. “In this year’s results we have six teams that have 6,000 points. The Woodlands girls were one of those teams.”
In Class 8, or girls public schools with a ninth through 12th grade enrollment of more than 1,900 students, the Lady Highlanders outdistanced Hamilton Southeastern of Fishers, Ind., which compiled 6,067 points, and Carmel (Carmel, Ind., 6,012 points). The independent Bolles School (Jacksonville, Fla., 6,097) and smaller Class 7 Upper Arlington (Columbus, Ohio, 6,288) also scored 6,000-plus points.
The independent St. Xavier (Cincinnati, 6,027) was the only boys school to top 6,000 points.
“The Woodlands is just one of the consistently strong programs in the country,” Torno said.
Torno, who has put together the dual meet rankings on a volunteer basis for NISCA since 1994, knows why the same schools keep showing up at the top.
“These are strong programs, these aren’t just strong teams, they’re strong programs,” he said. “The strong programs tend to keep coaches around, so Kent Kirchner...has been there awhile. It’s not an accident that those (programs) tend to be strong, because they have got good coaches that tend to stick around.”
The NISCA rankings are not a comprehensive evaluation of every school in the country because some coaches choose not to submit their teams for evaluation.
“I think the quality of our entrants is outstanding,” Torno said. “Has every coach of a good team submitted an entry? No. And that’s up to them.”
Among the teams not profiled in the NISCA rankings are Austin Westlake and San Antonio Churchill. Torno said Westlake had not done so in his 14 years with NISCA, but Churchill had before. Westlake beat out The Woodlands girls, 253-204, for the UIL Class 5A state championship in February. Churchill won the boys 5A title with 163 points, while The Woodlands boys were fourth with 128 points.
“When I hear of a good team that is not part of the program I have no problem taking the initiative and getting a hold of them,” Torno said.
He also added that teams he contacted did not respond to his request.
Kirchner, who has coached swimming and diving at The Woodlands for nine years, has not been reluctant in sending in his dual meet entry forms. The Woodlands girls team was ranked No. 1 by NISCA in 2005 and the boys received the same honor in 2001.
When asked how to describe in one word holding both No. 1 rankings simultaneously, Kirchner could not.
“I don’t know how you’d describe jumping up and down and screaming and hollering in one word,” Kirchner said. “Ecstatic. Overwhelmed. It’s an overwhelming achievement.”
Other area schools with notable performances in the Class 8 rankings were the Klein girls (11th) and boys 25th) and the Kingwood boys (13th) and girls (19th). The Montgomery girls team ranked 24th in the smaller Class 7, with 3,524 points.
Houston Memorial finished 31st and 45th, respectively, in the girls and boys Class 8 rankings. Also in Class 8, Stratford’s teams both ranked 33rd. The Southlake Carroll girls team, which finished ninth at the state meet, ranked fourth in Class 8, while their boys (10th at state) were rated 14th.
The September/October issue of the NISCA Journal and the NISCA website, www.niscaonline.org, will publish the rankings. Swimming World magazine will most likely post the NISCA team rankings on its website, www.swiminfo.com, sometime in the future, Torno said.
And when The Woodlands swimming and diving team resumes practice on the first day of school, Kirchner said he will “without a doubt” talk about the NISCA rankings.
“This is truly, truly an honor that has never been bestowed upon The Woodlands High School in swimming and diving,” he said.
Again.
The National Interscholastic Swimming Coaches Association has unveiled its 2008 National Dual Meet Team Rankings, and The Woodlands was crowned both the girls and boys national champions.
“It’s truly an honor to be associated with this type of program,” Woodlands coach Kent Kirchner said.
The NISCA rankings are compiled in a simulated dual meet format, and coaches from 36 states entered their teams this year. Points are awarded based on three individuals’ performances in nine events and two relay teams’ performances in three events.
The Woodlands girls racked up 6,101 points and the boys tallied 5,812. The point totals are extracted from a ratings system called Power Point tables, which values a five-second win more than a win of one one-hundredth of a second, for instance.
“Five thousand points is a damn good team. Six thousand is extraordinary,” said NISCA Power Point coordinator Paul Torno, who is charged with compiling the team rankings. “In this year’s results we have six teams that have 6,000 points. The Woodlands girls were one of those teams.”
In Class 8, or girls public schools with a ninth through 12th grade enrollment of more than 1,900 students, the Lady Highlanders outdistanced Hamilton Southeastern of Fishers, Ind., which compiled 6,067 points, and Carmel (Carmel, Ind., 6,012 points). The independent Bolles School (Jacksonville, Fla., 6,097) and smaller Class 7 Upper Arlington (Columbus, Ohio, 6,288) also scored 6,000-plus points.
The independent St. Xavier (Cincinnati, 6,027) was the only boys school to top 6,000 points.
“The Woodlands is just one of the consistently strong programs in the country,” Torno said.
Torno, who has put together the dual meet rankings on a volunteer basis for NISCA since 1994, knows why the same schools keep showing up at the top.
“These are strong programs, these aren’t just strong teams, they’re strong programs,” he said. “The strong programs tend to keep coaches around, so Kent Kirchner...has been there awhile. It’s not an accident that those (programs) tend to be strong, because they have got good coaches that tend to stick around.”
The NISCA rankings are not a comprehensive evaluation of every school in the country because some coaches choose not to submit their teams for evaluation.
“I think the quality of our entrants is outstanding,” Torno said. “Has every coach of a good team submitted an entry? No. And that’s up to them.”
Among the teams not profiled in the NISCA rankings are Austin Westlake and San Antonio Churchill. Torno said Westlake had not done so in his 14 years with NISCA, but Churchill had before. Westlake beat out The Woodlands girls, 253-204, for the UIL Class 5A state championship in February. Churchill won the boys 5A title with 163 points, while The Woodlands boys were fourth with 128 points.
“When I hear of a good team that is not part of the program I have no problem taking the initiative and getting a hold of them,” Torno said.
He also added that teams he contacted did not respond to his request.
Kirchner, who has coached swimming and diving at The Woodlands for nine years, has not been reluctant in sending in his dual meet entry forms. The Woodlands girls team was ranked No. 1 by NISCA in 2005 and the boys received the same honor in 2001.
When asked how to describe in one word holding both No. 1 rankings simultaneously, Kirchner could not.
“I don’t know how you’d describe jumping up and down and screaming and hollering in one word,” Kirchner said. “Ecstatic. Overwhelmed. It’s an overwhelming achievement.”
Other area schools with notable performances in the Class 8 rankings were the Klein girls (11th) and boys 25th) and the Kingwood boys (13th) and girls (19th). The Montgomery girls team ranked 24th in the smaller Class 7, with 3,524 points.
Houston Memorial finished 31st and 45th, respectively, in the girls and boys Class 8 rankings. Also in Class 8, Stratford’s teams both ranked 33rd. The Southlake Carroll girls team, which finished ninth at the state meet, ranked fourth in Class 8, while their boys (10th at state) were rated 14th.
The September/October issue of the NISCA Journal and the NISCA website, www.niscaonline.org, will publish the rankings. Swimming World magazine will most likely post the NISCA team rankings on its website, www.swiminfo.com, sometime in the future, Torno said.
And when The Woodlands swimming and diving team resumes practice on the first day of school, Kirchner said he will “without a doubt” talk about the NISCA rankings.
“This is truly, truly an honor that has never been bestowed upon The Woodlands High School in swimming and diving,” he said.
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