The Old Rochester Regional High School swim team is about to graduate its first class, and the team says the program has come a long way.

“When we first started, barely anyone knew we had a team,” said senior Nathan Wentworth.

That has changed as the team has gained members and solidified itself as an ORR sport.

This winter marks the team’s fourth season in the water, and Mitch Suzan’s first as head coach.

He began helping out his sister, Carly DeBeau, last year.

“She’s taking a step back, I’m taking a step forward,” said Suzan, who swapped responsibilities with his sister this season.

He said he was more of the “fun coach” last year, but taking on the role as head coach has been a pretty easy transition for him and the 23 swimmers on the boys and girls teams.

“We have a really hard working, good group of athletes who are dedicated, Suzan said. “They’re always ready to hop in the water.”

The swim season is quick. Practice started Nov. 30 and the team’s first meet was a short 11 days later. The final meet is at the end of this month.

Suzan said the team could use “more time to train, more time to reach their peak," but they make do with the time they have.

"They do what a lot of people do in four months in two,” he said.

Practicing and having home meets at New Bedford High School’s newly renovated pool has been a boost, compared to last year’s commute to Middleboro. And the team is making strides (or rather, strokes).

The team is young, which the coach and swimmers see as a positive.

Said senior Colleen Beatriz, “I feel like the thing that’s cool about our team is that we’re all new swimmers. There’s so much potential.”

One addition this year is a diving team. Senior Teagan Walsh first began learning diving during her sophomore year, and said this year the team quadrupled to a total of four girls.

“We’ve done well,” said Walsh. “We’ve competed at every meet that has had diving.”

She said the trick to getting on that narrow, wobbling board is to block out everything else.

“It’s scary if you look someone in the eyes right before you go,” Walsh said. “I just pretend no one else is there.”

Adding diving will help the overall score for the Bulldogs, whose youth and size means they are still the underdogs at swim meets. That isn’t something that gets the swimmers down. Both the students and their coach said there is a genuine team atmosphere, which is important even though the sport is full of individual events.

“We’re a team in and out of the pool,” said Walsh.

Every year the team presses on, it gains more support from the school and more momentum, which propels the swimmers forward.

Said Beatriz, “Our program, all it really needs is to grow.”