Local swimming and diving teams have their last opportunities this weekend to qualify for the Class AAAA-A state championships, and most of them will be found at the 42nd annual Metro Meet at the Westminster Schools.

Lovett, North Springs, Riverwood, North Atlanta and Atlanta International will be among the attendees at Westminster, which, in the past, has also hosted GHSA state championship meets.

“It’s a prelims/finals meet, like state, so it also gives the kids a chance to see what that’s like if they haven’t experienced prelims and finals before,” said North Springs coach Julie Ferris. “The top 20 make it back to finals, which allows for a good number of kids to swim at night, especially with 20 relays making it back. Finals is a whole different atmosphere. There’s music playing before each race, the air is a little tense, everyone is extremely pumped up, so it’s a great opportunity for the swimmers to experience this and use it to get best times.”

Area divers also will try to swell the ranks of local state qualifiers, which are few in number given the difficulty involved in attaining the necessary scores.

Among the local diving qualifiers for the GHSA state championships at Georgia Tech Feb. 10 and 11 are Riverwood’s Walker Wheeler, Westminster’s Frank Love and Pace Academy’s Harrison Moncino.

On the girls’ side, Lovett’s Halle Payne and McKenzie Richards, as well as Westminster’s Laura Barber, Caroline Hufford and Kakki Meyer are already in the state mix for next month based on earlier performances.

“Qualifying for state in diving takes great effort on the part of the divers,” said Riverwood coach John McDonald, adding that fellow Riverwood divers McCall Edwards, Nick Hayden and Nicolas Fischel are all very close to achieving the requisite scores to join Wheeler at state. “Their dedication is tremendous given the added inconvenience of training in different facilities as well as the added expense of hiring instructors. All in all, they are doing very well this year and we are extremely pleased with their effort.”

The Pace swim team will host the Last Chance meet Friday and Saturday, which Holy Innocents’ and Galloway will both attend.