There’s been a lot of changes in Bishop Stang swim team but they have more heart than ever. With a new assistant coach and a new coed team, the Spartans are breaking a lot of new ground.

This season marks the swim team’s first year as a co-ed sport.

Head coach Dave Ponte has been coaching Stang swimming once the inception of the girls team in 1996, and has seen many changes in the program. Though it seems that this would be a big transition, the team has taken it in stride and transitioned well, Ponte said.

The change to co-ed was not MIAA-mandated, but rather a decision that the school came to for the athletes to get the most out of their experience. Bishop Stang isn’t the only school to transition to co-ed and leave the southern conference. Where the girl’s swim team used to compete in the fall, teams still competing in the format over the new co-ed format have dwindled to almost none. In the new format, girls and boys compete in the same meet in alternating waves.

Now, as a part of the Bay Colony conference, the experience is not very different than in their previous conference. They participate in a relay carnival meet and have about eight meets. In the southern division, only a few schools in Stang’s former conference remain, as most other schools have converted to the co-ed system as numbers of swimmers have dwindled.

This is a problem that the boys team in particular faced. Though the girls team has a varied pool of athletes, the boys had just enough to compete, though the number would become very strained in the event of injuries.

Assistant coach Andrew St. Pierre has become Ponte’s “right hand,” keeping the swimmers on-task. A former Stang swimmer and state champion, St. Pierre, 24, came right back from the Providence College pool deck to the UMass pool, coaching kids the way that he was coached years before.

“It’s awesome to be on the other side of things,” St. Pierre said. “The sport did a lot for me. I just want to help them experience the same things that I did.”

Bishop Stang also boasts its third season with Ivy League record-holding diver and Yale graduate Rachel Rosenberg. Rosenberg came on board in 2014 as the new diving coach.

“We got really lucky with her,” Ponte said.

Even with the new co-ed system, not much has changed, St. Pierre said. Practices are still held to the same level of intensity, just with more bodies per lane. Both teams had their own traditions before unifying, but now they’ve had the opportunity to create new and lasting traditions together, St. Pierre said.

“It’s not about boys versus girls,” he added.

“They’ve adapted well,” said Ponte. “A lot of them already swim together, so they’re used to each other.”

Combining the teams has motivated the athletes, too.

“They work really hard, and they care about each other,” Ponte said.