Cerritos College Men’s Swim team are swimming towards their first meet of the season at the start of February. They look towards this meet as a benchmark to see their strengths and weaknesses.
Over the Fall semester most of the swim team belonged to the Cerritos College Water Polo team and tried their best to stay in shape through winter break where they did not practice. Head Coach Joe Abing said, “We are working really hard to get back into shape.”
Abing continued, “The team put a lot of yards in over the Fall on top of being in [water] polo.”
He added that this season he mostly wants his team to train and swim the hardest they can to improve not only themselves but their teammates.
Spring semester has seen the partial opening of the new Health and Wellness building including the weight room where many of the sports teams have been able to train in, Abing and the team are very eager to get in there and start training.
Swim meets are different than a typical sports game where there are three teams competing against each other instead of one on one. If the Falcons lose a meet they actually lose two or could win one and lose the other which is a split win.
After going 2-5 last season averaging split wins for most of their conference meets, the Falcons hope they can improve their record.
Abing mentioned that after this first meet he will have a better understanding as to how well the team can compete.
Scoring for a swim meet is based off of a point and place scoring system within heats of eights swimmers or more if more lanes are granted. Regardless of the three schools who place the top eight score the highest points.
There are limits to how many of one schools swimmers can compete in an event typically there are four swimmers per event admitted and three relays sometimes four if permitted to compete.
Relays score double and the most points for a team at a meet. An individual event typically will score 10 – 20 points depending if it is a conference meet and a relay can score up to 40 – 60 points for a team.
Abing also mentioned that Freshmen Rodrigo Baca and Joshua Guzman are two strong freshmen and can be utilized in many different events. Abing added “These are two freshmen that are special and can have a major impact at meets.”
The Falcons will travel down to Palomar College near San Diego for the Palomar Pentathlon and according to Abing is the meet where he will find what areas the team lacks but also their strengths.
The Falcons first home meet of the season will come Mar. 1 against rival Mt. San Antonio College and El Camino College at 12:30 p.m.
