When reflecting on the recent Sections meet, senior captain Emma Breyak said she’s happy with her team’s outcome in defending the team’s Section championship title.

“We kind of killed it, honestly, because it was supposed to be pretty close between us and Edina and we’ve won every Sections since Sections started,Breyak said. “This was the first year it was close between us.”

Assistant coach Carolyn Guddal said the team’s performance brings confidence going into the State meet May 25.

“I thought we had some of our best swims for Sections and I feel really confident about going into State based on how they performed,” Guddal said.

Junior Alexandra Monson said the team’s previous success at Sections put pressure on the team to maintain their title.

“We went in expecting to maintain our title because we have been winning Sections for a while, so it was more like, if you don’t win we’ll be disappointed,” Monson said. “We felt like we had to step up even though (Edina) try to get us, it didn’t work.”

Breyak said the team’s success at Sections consisted of wins in nearly every division of competition.

“We won every division except for like three, so that was pretty cool. That was unexpected because we have four people in our short division and (Edina has) 18 or something, and we won everything in (the Short division), which is really exciting,” Breyak said.

According to Breyak, Synchro competition is divided into short, long, and extended teams, which vary in the length of routines as well as the amount of experience of the swimmers.

Monson said the small size of Park’s team, especially in the short and long events, with four and five swimmers in each respectively, puts them at a disadvantage compared to other schools in their Section.

“(The size of our team is) an obstacle that we had to overcome because every swimmer is worth something, every swimmer is worth a point, so Edina automatically gets an advantage because they have so many girls,” Monson said.

Guddal said the rest of the season consists of fine tuning routines in preparation for State.

“What we’re working on now is minimizing errors while we swim, practicing the form and just making sure we minimize all the errors that just don’t need to happen and do the things we know really well so the judges reward us for the quality of work that the girls put out,” Guddal said.

According to Breyak, Park goes into the State meet ranked high, while in close proximity to fellow frontrunners Wayzata, Forest Lake and Stillwater.

State takes place 8:30 a.m. May 25 and 26 at the University of Minnesota Aquatic Center in Minneapolis.