The Pilgrim swimming team kicked off its season recently, and has high hopes despite having one of the youngest rosters in the division.

The Patriots have only two seniors, and will rely heavily on three freshman that were introduced in the preseason. First-year Pilgrim coach Dori LaBella has been pleased with what she has seen from her club in the early going.

“It’s been good, this is a great group of girls. They get along really well and mesh well together. I would love to see them place at divisions, that’s something that they’ve been trying for for a few years. If they could place in the top-3 that would be great for them. I don’t know how lofty of a goal that is for them, but based on (the early) meets, maybe they can make it,” said LaBella, who ultimately wants to see her club enjoy being in the pool and competing. “My main goal is that they have fun swimming … to come in, do their best and have fun doing it.”

Although the Lady Pats do not have a whole lot of experience at the varsity level, many of the younger girls, especially their three new freshmen, have experience in big events.

“We have two freshmen that swim for the YMCA, we have another freshman that just came here from Oklahoma and she was a competitive swimmer there. We have three freshman that come in with great background experience which we don’t necessarily have a lot of,” said LaBella, who also hopes that having a young roster will help grow the Pilgrim program in the community. “Our swimmers have been doing really well, I’ve been very proud of them. We will have a very strong team for the next three or four years with so many young girls that are such strong swimmers. Throughout the school we oftentimes hear, ‘I didn’t even know that we had a swim team.’ Hopefully with having so many more young girls coming out that will help us have an even bigger team moving forward.”

LaBella also hopes to see the Pilgrim program emerge as a contender in the swimming community.

“Kids tend to know each other. For the most part when we go into a meet there will be girls on the other team that know girls from our team, or know the coaches from out team. Maybe after this year people will start saying, ‘there’s the Pilgrim team, they’re a good team and we have to watch out for them,’” said LaBella.

Looking ahead, LaBella feels that practice will be key to the Pats’ success.

“They just need to keep swimming and be in the water consistently,” said LaBella. “In the offseason, if they are not swimming for a competitive team then they at least have to be in the water.”