butterfly - speed & endurance

Question
My daughter swims competitively at the high school level.  The butterfly is her favorite stroke but she has made little progress in her time improvement as her coach needs her to swim freestyle events.  Her times have not improved over the last year (she swims 9 months out of the year)and she typically has a significant delta in her 50 yard splits of the 100 butterfly (usually 5 - 7 seconds).  I've noticed some of the faster local swimmers have a 2-3 second difference between the first and second 50 yard split.  Can you recommend how she can improve her overall speed and how to reduce the delta between 50 yard splits for the 100 butterfly?    many thanks...

Answer
Pete--
It almost sounds like your daughter is swimming the firtst 50 too fast and is fading at the end of the race.  The ideal splits should be within a second to a second and a half of each other for a high school athlete.  As long as she is getting a well rounded training regimen, some practice in each stroke and enough distance training, her stamina shouldn't be an issue.  A lot of butterfly is not necessary since that can injure her shoulders, but some is needed to maintain timing issues.
I have a couple suggestions, though.
Really concentrate on improving starts, turns and streamlines to save time and energy with those aspects.
When she is racing the first 50 should feel smooth and relaxed, accelerate through the 3rd 25 and really push her kick on the last 25.  I should feel like she is negative splitting(second half faster than the first) the race.
I hope this helps, any thing else let me know,
George