As sophomore Claudia Stone prepares for her first home meet of the season, she said she can’t wait to see how the team performs.

“I’m really excited,” Stone said. “I think we’re going to do really well.”

After a season full of away meets, girls’ swimming will have its first home meet Sept. 22.

Head coach Joe Yaeger said the team prepares for the meet by focusing on honing in on skills that will decrease swimmer’s times.

“Each day, we’ll vary the practices. (We will be) working on turns, starts, kicking and individual medley,” Yaeger said.

Sophomore Claudia Stone said the team trains hard at practices, and does dryland exercises to prepare for the upcoming home meet.

“We’ve been doing a lot of weight lifting, lunges and squat jumps,” Stone said.

Junior Trinity Boehlke said core and leg work are the focuses of dryland practices. In the pool, Boehlke said the team works on turns and sprints.

Boehlke said three to four of the team’s six weekly practices involve strength training.

Yaeger said the hard work the girls put in during practices shows in their performance at meets.

“I can already see (improvement). It’s a very talented group of girls, from seniors all the way down to eighth graders,” Yaeger said.

When it comes to goal setting, Yaeger said he focuses on ensuring swimmers enjoy their experience.

“My goals for the girls are to be very competitive, to have a great time on the team, to get personal bests and to be happy with the entire season,” Yaeger said.

The first home meet will be the fourth meet the girls have competed in this season, according to gopark.org.

According to Boehlke, swim meets occur weekly, and are energetic, fun and loud.

Stone said she looks forward to seeing how everyone does in the meet after all of the hard work in practices.

“I’m really excited,” Stone said. “I think we’re going to do really well.”

The meet takes place at 6 p.m. Sept. 22 at the high school against Robbinsdale Cooper.