After a bitter defeat last season against South Elgin, the boys co-op Wego-Batavia swim team are expecting a victory when they face them on Thursday.

“Last year we did lose to South Elgin by one point. It was a loss that my team didn’t want to have last year because we were down by a few swimmers but we are hoping to walk away with a victory this year,” head coach Nicole Cleveland said.

Even though the team does not have many upperclassmen, senior Sam Thomas is expecting a win.

“I think this time we have a really good chance of beating them. Last year most of our team were freshman and most of them had another year to get stronger and beefed up. So even though we lost a lot of seniors I feel like we can take them down this time,” Thomas said.

While the team’s numbers are up compared to last year’s meet, more swimmers are needed to help the overall  scoring.

“As a team we are strong and we end up winning lots of our meets. But, we don’t have enough swimmers to fill in the lanes all the time so we don’t score enough points after the win,” Cleveland said.

To prepare for the meet the team trains every day in the pool and the weight room. The varsity boys swim between 6,000 to 7,000 yards a day.

“In practices, we usually do a warmup that consist of a 500 swim, 400 kick and 300 pull with the pull boy which trains both the entire body, just the legs, or just the arms,” senior junior varsity captain Rahul Prabhu said.

Dual meets are a chance for the team to practice how to race.

“I remind them that dual meets are a chance to practice while they meet. Our goal is not on individual dual meets but on conference and sectionals. This meet is a time for us to fix some things and have a little bit of fun but it’s a chance to practice how to race properly for the big meets,” Cleveland said.