The Cerritos College swim and diving team is preparing for its first swim meet of the season. The meet takes place on Feb. 7 and 8 in the city of San Diego.

“I feel that our team is prepared, ” freshman Daryl DaSilva said.

The team practices very hard everyday in order to get ready for the upcoming season, according to DaSilva.

“Despite only two weeks of practice into the season, we have been practicing two to six hours a day. We are at the point where as the season goes by, we will only get faster,” DaSilva said.

Freshman Brittany Erickson said “we practice everyday and do different drills.”

Erickson added, “Tuesdays and Thursdays we go to the weight room and fitness room to workout.”

The swimmers are confident in their team on how well their outcome will be this season.

“The team, even though its rather small, will do rather well I think,” Erickson said.

“Not only are we confident in our teammates, but we are also confident on our own performances,” she said.

“As a team we are pretty strong and have each other’s backs,” DaSilva said.

According to DaSilva, the hard work has glued together a well knit team of swimmers.

“We all get along well and are getting closer each day as we suffer through endless practices together,” he said.

The long hours in the pool have created a cause that the whole team feels obliged to fulfill.

“As an individual I’m feeling stronger as the days go by.” DaSilva added, “but there is always room for improvement.”

Swimmers as individuals are confident and know which stroke they are strongest in.

“This season I am hoping to swim the 100 fly and 200, I’m 100 breast and 500 free, I’m not such a big fan of long distance events,” DaSilva said.

Men’s and women’s diving wish to shake off all bad experiences from last season and remember the key element of the sport, and that is to have fun while competing, according to diving head coach Glen Myer.

“We had a lot of potential last season,” Myer said, “some of our beginners come out and did quite well.”

Apart from the new divers, the veteran divers had trouble with nerves in big meets, according to Myer.

“Our more seasoned divers, had a problem with nerves, at championships and things did not go as well.” he said.

Diving is a very mental sport, says Myer, and if the diver is not concentrated in his or her dive it can affect his or her performances.

The diving team does not have any divers coming back from last season.

“Our top diver graduated and is diving for a private school,” Myer said.

Surprisingly enough Myer is thrilled to know that the divers in his team this season are already showing impressive results.