Hoping to do as well as they did in practice, the diving team will face a multitude of competition at the Cuesta Invitational in San Luis Obispo this weekend.

Most of the colleges will be there to compete and measure themselves against the rest of the competition, said assistant coach Laurie Dawdy.

“It will give us a picture to see who else is out there. Then we can see where we have to focus in preparation for the state championship,” Dawdy said.

The invitational is not a sanctioned event that counts for points for their college. Nor does this competition affect the Warriors’ standings.

“It is just another experience to see where each individual stands,” she said.

However, while it doesn’t count, Wendell Perkins said that the technical style is more advanced in these kind of meets compared to other ones.

“In the invitational, we do eleven dives on each board which means we compete twice,” Perkins said.

In addition, he said these meets are a little more realistic as far as maxing scores and setting records.

“You do all six of your harder dives and then you do the five easy ones,” Perkins said.

Although Perkins does not have a lot of competing experience, Dawdy said he definitely has more knowledge.

“He has trained more than the other divers who are first-timers on the diving team this semester,” Dawdy said.

In the invitational, Perkins said his second meet was last week with Mt. SAC. He said he is looking forward to doing his 11 dives and performing well to help his team.

“I’m not worried about the upcoming event because I did well,” he said.

In his first meet, Perkins said he broke the 6-5 dual meet record. He said what makes him nervous is that this will be his first chance to break the high board and low board record.

“The last recorded standing was in 1962 and then in 1995,” Perkins said. “I think this is the only thing I’m worried about because I’ve had to work hard to get here.”

In addition, Perkins said the one other thing that rattles his nerves is the possibility of being injured. These concerns plague his mind despite a lot of experience.

“It makes me nervous more so to think about the possibilities of crashing and getting hurt than it does about winning,” Perkins said.

“I want to win and I would love to go undefeated this year. I don’t get nervous about competition though,” he added.

Nonetheless, Lindsey Thurmond, the only female on the team, said being a first-time diver, she really enjoys the environment.

“I wasn’t sure if I could be a good diver, but everyone has been supportive and it has been a fun experience,” Thurmond said.

With nothing but praise, Perkins said he is very surprised at how well Thurmond has learned to dive.

“In the last meet against Chaffey College she beat her opponent by one point,” Perkins said.

As for his own accomplishments and expectations going into this weekend’s invitational meet, Perkins said. “It is just a numbers game. I totally put everything in my coaches hands.”