Rigorously training and swimming endless miles week after week, the men and women’s swimming and diving team’s hard work was brought short at the meet on March 4.

With more than half of the team ill, the team was not able to bring their full potential power during their meet against Mt. San Antonio and Pasadena.

“The other teams were a little stronger than we were on top of that so it was a bad combination,” coach Corey Stanbury said. “We just had too many people sick.”

However, they were able to make it up over the weekend at the meet against Cuesta College on March 9-10 in San Luis Obispo.

On average, the team had swam close to 7000 yards. Approximately four miles every afternoon and another 3000 to 3500 yards with two miles on top of that every morning to prepare for the big events.

Shanese Douglas, team captain said she wanted to make sure everyone maintained a positive attitude.

“As a captain I also encourage my fellow teammates to keep pushing themselves to improve their times every meet,”  she said.

She scored a 32.62 on the 50 Butterfly and a 1:18.86 on the 100 Butterfly, which she said was her personal best.

Additionally, out of the 75 swimmers that participated in the meet, 40 of them had the seasons best times, which included Douglas and swimmer Erica Bender.

“Right now, everything we’re doing is work really hard,” Stanbury said. “So they are super tired.”

Another swimmer, Christopher Murphy, scored a 105 for the 100 Butterfly and a 28.7 on the 50 Freestyle.

“I missed a week of practice because of I was sick, “ Murphy said. “So they weren’t my best times.”

The coach’s goal this season is for the swimmers to swim really fast when they get to the conference championship, which is held in late April.

“I know our goal is for everyone to go their lifetime best for all their events by conference and with coach Corey and coach Vince’s help I know we will all accomplish our goals,” Douglas said.

In addition to the team, Bender swam her 200 free with a personal best time of 2:06.00 and made some record times that are close to what it is going to take to get into the state championships.

“I’m optimistic that in spite of our training really hard that we are going have some good swims,” Stanbury said. “And it’s going to be a good practice.”