After being a combined, co-ed team for 17 years, the swim team has now been split up into a boys’ team and a girls’ team.

According to coach Jean Fedak, the team’s 56 and 0 winning streak ended when the team split up, and the two teams began their seasons 0-0 and 0-0.

As of January 19 the girls’ team has a record of 7-1 and the boys’ team has a record of 5-2.

“It [the split] has been tough for the boys,” senior boys’ captain Ethan McRae said.

Although the split was the choice of athletic directors throughout the league, and not that of the team itself, Fedak and her teams have decided to embrace the new change.

“The attitude that I’ve taken is: this is our format. Let’s see how far we can go with it,” Fedak said.

However, junior Max Donahue liked swim team better when the boys and the girls were one team.

“Before, boys and girls would be swimming together and the win would feel really good because it was all of us working together. But now there have been instances where the girls win and the boys lose and that’s just really not as fun,” Donahue said.

Overall, most of the team’s traditions remain the same. They continue to practice together, ride the bus together, and they even still have combined pasta parties. The one main difference, however, is the meets themselves.

“The biggest change is just not swimming with the boys anymore,” senior girls captain Frances Palmer said.

“Instead of boys and girls stepping up to compete against one another at the same time for one team score, now there is an official girls’ heat and an official boys’ heat and at the end of the two meets there are two separate scores,” Fedak said.