A young Lakeland High School swim team continues to take steps every meet.

The Lakeland swim teams has been under a different direction in the last three seasons. Kelie Garrett took over this season for the Cavs, and with such a young team, they have been able to take steps in the right direction so far. The team has a ton of newcomers, and Garrett has been making sure her young swimmers integrate into a team atmosphere and set realistic goals for themselves.

“We know at times we may not be the best team out there in the pool, but we work hard to be the most spirited and supportive team out there,” Garrett said.

With few seniors on the team this season, the goal of learning this season has been the experience the group has been able to get as a whole. As the Lakeland swimmers have gotten more experience throughout practices and the first couple of meets, they are starting to see better team results as times start to drop. Lakeland strives to be one of the more versatile teams out there, as Garrett encourages her swimmers to try all events instead of maybe just one or two.

“We want the swimmers to branch out and see the opportunities they have in front of them,” Garrett said. “You may not like everything, but at least they have tried it. So, we really challenge everyone, and it’s good to see when they compete and complete these different types of events, they can look at themselves and say ‘I did it.’”

Even though Lakeland swims in a tough Southeastern District as the smallest team, they believe those meets help the team get better. Even though they are yet to win a meet, they have come close in some of their matchups with bigger schools, which is encouraging for the team going forward the rest of the season.

“We have been close in a couple of our meets against some of the bigger schools,” Garrett said. “With some of the teams we match up well against, we have come close to tying or beating those teams, and it just gets the team so excited to see that they are doing things they didn’t think they were capable of doing.”

Lakeland will look for its first win of the season when the Cavs take on Indian River High School Saturday afternoon.