The sound of buzzards wailing keep the audience on its feet as the swim team competes in their first meet of the season.

“I won first place in all of my events,” varsity swimmer Petra Vass said. “For my 100 backstroke, my time was 1:08 and for my 200, my time was 2:25.”

On Feb. 22, the team competed against three schools: Taft Charter High School, Chaminade High School and Sherman Oaks Center For Enriched Studies High School. The meet was held at Birmingham Community Charter High School. The team has practice everyday of the week to help the swimmers with their techniques.

“We usually swim during practice and we have two warm up sets and after that we have our main sets,” varsity swimmer Cj Gorospe said. “We usually swim over a mile or two a practice.”

This is Gorospe’s first time swimming competitively. He did not place this meet but he finished his 50 freestyle in 28 seconds which was a new record for him. He believes there are a few things he can work on to help him improve.

“I’m not a strong kicker and swimmer when it comes to butterfly and breaststroke so I need to improve on that too,” Gorospe said.

Out of the 10 Daniel Pearl Magnet High School swimmers, both Gorospe and Vass believe that a few members of the team will be able to make it to finals this season.

“We have a lot of great and strong swimmers that are really fast,” Gorospe said.