Despite a loss, the women’s swim team is exploiting its increase in endurance swimming in order to accommodate for both the three-day Cuesta meet this Friday and an NCAA-style schedule.

Increasing endurance and stamina has been a focal point for the women’s swim team, according to coach Sergio Macias, as it has been suffering in keeping up its pace at events.

However, it looks like it’s also to match up to an NCAA type of standard.

The Cuesta Invitational on Friday will host conference teams in a tournament competition.

The women’s swim team heads into the meet after falling to both Pasadena City College and Mt. San Antonio College 175-96 and 168-107, respectively.

Amanda Rabb, who specializes in breast stroke, swam “a lot of personal bests” and embraced her work load.

“I swam a 200-yard breast stroke for the first time. And then I had to turn around and get on the diving boards soon after that,” she said. “Overall, the team did well; we were supportive of each other.”

The number 200 is something the team is going to have to get used to going forward.

Freestyle swimmer Devin Phommachanh said that the team is increasing its strokes and distances in order to reach a new standard the coaches in the South Coast Conference have been discussing.

“Well, the coach announced last week that there’s been some kind of conference talk about athletes,” she said. “That, as a college, we should be swimming what universities are swimming; that just because we’re community colleges we shouldn’t be swimming slower distances, so we’re actually adjusting more to the 200.”

Phommachanh herself swam the 200-yard freestyle event for the first time.

The increase in distance doesn’t pose as problem it seems, as Rabb thrived in her event.

“This was the first time I had done anything past 100 [yards]. The 100-yard breast stroke is tiring for me, so pulling out 200 yards was difficult,” she said.

“Since it’s a distance event, you have to end up pacing yourself. I ended up pacing myself in a faster speed than I did for my 100 [yard breast stroke], so I feel like I did really well.”

Regardless of discussions about increasing yardage for swimmers, the team has still been emphasizing long-distance sets for team growth.

Rabb said, “I feel like lately, we’ve been kind of been doing more endurance sets. That ends up translating itself when it is time for competition. Obviously, when you have more endurance and stamina, you are able to do those long-distance events.

“It’s been working itself out.”

There’s been improvement from the previous meet, where swimmers described its long-distance events as “exhausting.”

A necessary tool for the tournament at Cuesta.

“There’s going to be multiple teams going,” Rabb said. “This is my first year, so I’m not too familiar with some of the competition, but I know it’s definitely going to be interesting.”