What are time trials? Clerk of what? S&T? Timer? Ever wonder about some of the terms you hear at the pool? Read below to brush up on swim team lingo and learn a little more about our season:

Swim Meets - Swimmers from the Calverton Swim Team can participate in A Meets, B Meets, Relay Carnival, Divisionals, Coaches Long Course, and All-Star meets.

A Meet

"A" Meets are the regular MCSL competitions held on Saturday mornings against other teams in our division. Score is kept and the results of these meets “count” toward our league standings. Each team can put 6 swimmers in all freestyle events and 3 swimmers in events for all other strokes. The coaches decide the lineup for the meet based upon swimmer’s times and it must be submitted to the opposing team prior to the meet.

Entry Rules:

• A team may enter a swimmer in a maximum of five events (3 individual, IM, and 1 relay).

• Typically, the 3 fastest swimmers in each stroke (6 swimmers for Freestyle) will be entered in the meet. The coach will use his/her discretion to put together the best line-up to win the meet.

• These are each scored dual-meets with one other team in the division.

• Swimmers should remain in the team area during the meet.

• It is important to declare your swimmer (available or not available) for each meet. The coach makes line-ups based on declared, available swimmers.

• Please see the MCSL handbook for all dual meet rules.

B Meet

"B" Meets are a swimming “scrimmage” held on Wednesday evenings (usually 6PM start) against teams that may or may not be in our division. We typically choose teams near our pool, Calverton Swim Club. Swimmers swim for competitive practice and to improve their time. B meets are all about fun and they're open to almost everyone. Pre-Team swimmers who become meet-ready after the first few weeks of practice are welcome to swim in B meets. Coaches will let pre-team kids know when they're meet-ready.

Entry Rules:

• Swimmers are limited to swimming three individual events and one IM within a one week period (a week is defined as starting with the A Meet on Saturday and ending with the B Meet on the following Wednesday).
• "A" Meet swimmers cannot re-swim their A Meet events in a B Meet. They can, however, swim their non-A Meet events in a B Meet (provided they abide by rule #1).

Entry Example: Ollie Otter swam freestyle and breaststroke at the A Meet on Saturday. Ollie may choose to swim either backstroke OR butterfly in the B Meet on Wednesday, but not both.

• Swimmers must be legal in the stroke to sign up. If you don’t know whether yours swimmer is legal in a stroke, please talk with the coaches.
• These meets give all swimmers a chance to compete and establish seeding times for A Meets.
• There is no score.
• Swimmers should remain in the team area during the meet.

A Relay Carnival

Relay Carnival is one of the most fast-paced, fun meets of any swim season, involving every team in the division!

• Only relays are swum, and some involve swimmers from various age groups.
• The 1st place relay team of each event at the A Relay Carnival is seeded for the All Star Relay meet. 
• If a relay team qualifies via the A Relay Carnival to swim in All Star Relays, the relay team members who swam in the A Relay Carnival will swim that relay at All Star Relays.
• This is a scored meet.
• The coach will work to create a line-up to earn the team the most points.
• It is important to declare your swimmer (available or not available) for this meet. The coach can only enter declared, available swimmers.

Division Championship \ 'Divisionals'

The final championship meet of the regular swim season.

• All 6 teams in the division meet at one pool.
• Each team enters two swimmers in each individual event, and one relay team for each relay.
• The coach enters the swimmers based on the two fastest times achieved throughout the season.

All Stars

• MCSL hosts the All Star meet the weekend after Divisionals.
• The meet is held at the Rockville Swim and Fitness Center.
• All Star Relay (Saturday)
  • Entries are determined at each division relay carnival. 
  • Relay teams that take first place go on to the the All Star Relay meet.
• Individual All Stars (Sunday)
  • Entries include the fastest 16 swimmers for each event from the entire MCSL.
• All Star Times
  • The league lists “All Star Nominating Times”. If you swim faster than the nominating time, you have an All Star nominating time.
  • At the end of the season, the 16 fastest swimmers in each event are invited to swim in the Individual All Star Meet (there are also three alternates).
  • Swimmers who get a nominating time have the opportunity to order an All Star t-shirt.

Coaches Invitational Long Course

MCSL hosts this special meet for the eight fastest swimmers from the entire MCSL for each event and is held mid-season.

• The meet is held at the Rockville Swim and Fitness Center.
• All event lengths are doubled and swum in a 50 meter pool.
• Swimmers and their families are encouraged to come watch this event, support any OMST swimmers, and see some of the very fastest swimmers in the county!

Definitions

Age Groups: Swimmers are broken up by age group for male and female: 8 years old and younger, 9-10 years old, 11-12 years old, 13-14 years old, and 15-18 years old.

All-Star Time: The time necessary to qualify to swim in the MCSL All Star Meet.

Automation: The computerized system of creating meet entries, running and scoring a meet. Automation is used for both A and B meets.

Backstroke Flags: A string of pennants stretched over the pool so that when performing the backstroke, swimmers will know how far away the wall is in order to successfully execute their turns and finishes.

Certified Official: Unlike other sports where leagues hire paid officials, swim teams rely on volunteers. At each meet, teams must supply a certain number of officials who have attended MCSL certification clinics to learn league rules and procedures. The positions include: referee, chief judge, starter, and stroke-and-turn judges. Please see our Volunteering section for more information.

Clerk of Course: Swimmers called for a race report first to the Clerk of Course. This is a designated area where parent volunteers check the swimmers in for each event.

Course: Distance over which the competition is conducted.

Long Course = 50 meters.

Short Course = 25 meters or 25 yards.

Division / Division H: The MCSL is divided into fifteen divisions (A-O) with six (6) teams in each division. Assignment to a division is based on a team’s performance from the previous year. The Calverton Chargers will swim in Division H for the 2025 season.

DQ: To be disqualified from an event. A swimmer (or relay team) can be “DQed” for a number of things, most commonly for not doing a stroke correctly or for a false start. Swimmers may complete their races but their times will not “count” and no points are earned.

Dual Competition: competition between two teams.

Event: At a swim meet, races are organized by age groups, gender, and stroke. Each race is called an "event." Events are ordered and numbered. Each event may have a series of "heats". 

Heats: Divisions in an event that will have 6-8 (depending on the pool size) swimmers in each, which are seeded (organized) by swimmer's times (slowest to fastest).

Heat Winner: The swimmer who swims the fastest for that heat or group of six swimmers. They are not necessarily the winner of the event, because at a B meet there can be many heats. At an A meet, there are two heats for each age group for freestyle. At a B meet each heat winner is given a ribbon upon exiting the pool.

Intra-Squad Meet: A competition exclusively among members of a single team.

Ladder: The ranking of swimmers (fastest to slowest) based on their personal best time, by age group and event. The ladder is updated after each swim meet.

Lane Sheet: The paper used to record times for each event. The lane sheets are on a clipboard with a pen and each lane sheet includes the swimmers ’names in that lane for each event and their seed time. One timer from each lane records all three times onto the lane sheet, circles the median time, and gives it to the runner to bring to automation.

IM: Individual Medley, an event in which the swimmer uses all four competitive strokes in the following order: butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke and freestyle.

MCSL: Montgomery County Swim League is the body that governs, organizes and sponsors the competitive swimming across the approximately 90 pools that make up the league. http://mcsl.org

Meet Program: The meet program lists all the swimmers participating in each event, which heat and lane they are in, and their seed times for each event. The meet program will be emailed to all families before the meet.

Officials: Volunteers trained and certified by MCSL to run a meet.

Pool Deck: The concrete area surrounding the pool on all sides.

Pre-Team: A developmental program for those swimmers who are learning the fundamentals of swimming. The coaches will hold a pre-team evaluation to assess if swimmers are ready for a pre-team placement. Pre-team swimmers are members of the Calverton Chargers swim team and take part in all team activities, including Pep Rallies.

Pep Rally: Most Friday evenings before an A meet the team has a pep rally. These are social events for the team and all swimmers are invited to attend. Kids will cheer, play games, and generally engage in maximum fun!

Personal Best / Personal Record: The swimmers’ best (fastest) time for each event from the whole swim season. The personal best times are used by the coaches to create the ladder.

Points: For each event at an A meet, a first-place finish earns the team 6 points. Second-place earns 4 points, third-place earns 3 points, fourth-place earns 2 points and fifth-place earns 1 point. The points are totaled for each team. The team with the most points wins.

Results: The results of the events are posted (usually taped to the wall) after they have been verified and scored. After the meet, the complete results are emailed out to the team and can be found on the MCSL website.

Scratch: Removal of a swimmer from the lineup.

Seed Time: The time used by the coaches to choose entries for a meet. These times are listed in the meet program.

Strokes: There are four individual strokes: freestyle, backstroke, butterfly and breaststroke. Each stroke has a set of rules that govern how it should be legally swam.

Swim Cap: Each swimmer is highly recommended to purchase a Calverton Swim cap prior to the season, and are encouraged to wear a swim cap for practice and meets. For meets, only swim caps with our pool’s name and logo can be worn, OR a plain swim cap with no logo or name.

Swim Team Awards Banquet: This family event is held at the end of the regular season. The coaches give out awards and everyone gets a chance to swim. The night ends with dessert and a video of season highlights.

SwimTopia: This is the website and app used to manage the swim team, meet entries, and swimmers’ times. Parents and/or swimmers use Swimtopia need to mark the swimmer’s availability so the coaches know whether or not they can participate in the meets. Parents and swimmers also use the app to keep track of dates, times, and locations of events.

Team Reps: These parent volunteers represent the team at all MCSL meetings, hire and supervise coaches, communicate with the team, work with other team reps to schedule B meets, organize parent volunteers for every meet, organize team suits and spirit wear, handle team registrations, work with the pool board, answer questions, cheer for our kids, and more...

Team Score: The team score is made up of points earned by individual events and relays. The team score is totaled and announced at half time and at the conclusion of the meet.

Time Trials: Time trials is the opening (practice) meet of every season, swum so new and updated times can be recorded for swimmers.

Vertical: Perpendicular to the water surface.

Volunteering: Calverton Chargers is a parent-run swim team and without the support of ALL parents there would be no swim season. Swim meets require over 30 parent volunteers to run a meet. Volunteer jobs include: Runner, Timer, Automation, Announcer, Clerk of Course, Certified Officials, Concessions, Ribbon Writer, and more. Details on volunteering can be found on the Volunteer page.