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The Aquatics Center at Colby College is considered by many in the Maine swimming community the best overall facility in the state. Some say it’s one of the best pools in New England.
That’s why the Maine Principals’ Association swim committee has discussed moving all four high school state championship meets to Colby since before the 2024-25 season.
This season, the state’s top swimmers will have that opportunity to race at the $200 million Harold Alfond Athletics and Recreation Center facility. They will, however, have to tweak their calendars to do so.
In prioritizing venue availability, the MPA shifted the swimming calendar by about two weeks. The first official practice took place on Dec. 1, and the championship meets are set for March 6-7. Class A boys and girls will race on Friday, March 6, and Class B boys and girls will follow on Saturday, March 7.
Outside of the 2021-22 season impacted by COVID-19 restrictions, the state championship meets are typically held during the third week of February. But previous reservations for the NESCAC championships (Feb. 19-22) and Maine YMCA state championships (Feb. 27-March 1) meant the Colby pool wasn’t available until the first full weekend of March.
Josh Frost, the Ellsworth High athletic director and MPA swim committee chair, said the idea to shift the schedule was floated to coaches during their spring meeting and was announced in September. Frost also said he talked to YMCA organizers about switching dates but was told the October ask was too soon of a request.
“Most of the high school coaches, again, wanted to get Colby. If that meant going a week or two later, then that’s what it took,” Frost said.
Coach Sarah Rasmussen and the Deering/Portland co-op are all for the change.
“We have the opportunity to use a state-of-the-art facility to increase excitement and engagement in our sport, and we needed to take advantage of it, so I was very on board with it,” Rasmussen said.
Rasmussen is excited that her boys and girls teams will get to cheer for one another without taking up as much spectator’s space, since Colby’s seating capacity is almost twice as large as the Husson University pool, where her RamDogs won their second straight Class A girls title last season.
She added that it was nice to not have the first few weeks of practice be interrupted by Thanksgiving break.
Morse coach Spencer Hallowell is opposed because of the conflict with the club swimming calendar, in which more than half of his roster participates.
After the Morse boys won the 2025 Class B title at Bowdoin, a handful of his swimmers returned to the water that evening to continue practicing for the YMCA state meet. Now that the order of the championships is swapped, Hallowell and the Long Reach Swim Club coach will have to coordinate to make sure their shared swimmers are still performing at top levels without going overboard.
Add in training for the conference championships the week before February vacation and the Maine Winter Championships (a USA Swimming event) at Bowdoin the week after states, and Hallowell points out that family calendars get cluttered, too.
“I’m getting kind of negative feedback from both the swimmers and the parents,” Hallowell said. “That’s a long slog for the parents to have big swim meets every weekend like that. … Having to swim four weekends in a row, basically state championship style meets, it’s a real drag. The swimmers have never had to do anything like that before, and there are no swim leagues in the entire country where swimmers are expected to swim kind of at a championship-level four weeks in a row.”
Scott Morrison, coach of the Edward Little/Leavitt/Poland/Lewiston co-op and officials’ liaison to the MPA swim committee, says his swimmers aren’t bothered by the change.
“They just want to compete,” Morrison said. “They want to have fun, so they’ll swim wherever they need to go.”
Beth Prelgovisk, coach of the Messalonskee/Skowhegan/Nokomis/Lawrence co-op, originally didn’t want the calendar to shift, but understands why the change was made.
“I think a lot of people wanted to wait a year to try to see how it’s going to affect those swimmers, as far as those kids who are in band and chorus, in plays, and other extracurricular activities,” Prelgovisk said.
The boys hockey state championships are also scheduled for March 7.
She continued: “I don’t know how it’s going to conflict, so we’re going to just find out this year. There’s some coaches who are not happy that it just was sprung upon us, and that’s the way it was going to be, but sometimes you just have to go with the flow and do the best you can and then see what happens and then go from there.”
