After three months of practices, the Girls’ swimming team is finally ready for its sections meet where they will be swimming to go to state, according to head coach Joe Yaeger.

Yaeger said he has high expectations for the team and hopes they succeed in the meet.

“I expect good swims from all the girls, they have been training hard, and they should get rewarded with some good time drops and hopefully get a lot of girls to the second death,” Yaeger said.

Yaeger said he thinks certain swimmers on the team will do particularly well on a few events in the meet.

“Our relay should be really solid, Natalie Sandford in the 200 IM (Medley) should be a great race. Heather Westwood in the back and fly. And Emmi Zheng in the 100 breast should be really good,” Yaeger said. “Last year Sydney Hall had a great meet, and I expect great things from her too.”

Yaeger said they are competing against Edina, Minnetonka, Eden Prairie, Minneapolis Southwest and three other teams.

Senior captain Emmi Zheng said she hopes the individual swimmers accomplish their personal goals as a good end to the season.

“I am expecting that everyone will do really well, and that they will get their best times because we have worked really hard this season and everyone has the potential to do the best they’ve done this season,” Zheng said.

Zheng said the team starts preparing for sections a few weeks in advance, with strategic practices to benefit the swimmers.

“We started off with peak week, which is a week of really hard practices, and next week we will be starting taper, which is when practices start to get easier to make us more relaxed and well rested for the meet,” Zheng said. “We are also going to be shaving our legs because we haven’t shaved them all season and that makes you go faster.”

Zheng said the team is strong but only a few swimmers will be able to do exceptionally well.

“I’d say we are about in the middle, but there are some really fast teams in our section,” Zheng said. “I don’t think that we will win the meet, but we have a couple swimmers who I think will place high in their individual events.”

Yaeger said he is looking forward to seeing how the team does in sections.

“If sections go well, we will hopefully have State. But other than that, if sections don’t continue our season, I am looking forward to coaching the boys team,” Yaeger said.

The first section meet will be at 4:30 p.m. Nov. 6 at Art Downey Aquatic Center in Edina. With the second meet at 1 p.m. Nov. 8.