Katie Fitzgerald is entering her first year as coach of the Lower Merion girls' swim team. She hopes it is the first of many.

"We're trying to kind of build the team a little bit, it hasn't been that unified in the last couple years. We're focusing more on team spirit and building more of a family this year. Even though it can be considered more of an individual sport, we want to be a family," Fitzgerald explained.

"They've had a lot of different coaches, but I plan on being here for a while, and I think that will help a lot. Consistency is key," she said.

Fitzgerald, a competitive swimmer in high school and college, is loath to put hard-fast expectations on her team. This is partly a matter of values, but mostly a matter of just having met them. She's not sure what she has yet.

"To be honest, one of the benefits of being a new coach is that I don't have expectations. The way the program has performed recently, we can swim this season on our own terms. My biggest expectation is for them to have fun and love swimming like I do. … It's a tough sport, and I want them to grow to love it," Fitzgerald said.

Even that might be a lot to ask. The team practices from 5:30 to 7:00 each day – in the morning.

"Swimming is one of those sports where the more you practice the better you're gonna get," explained Fitzgerald.

But 5:30 in the morning?

"I'm usually up pretty early, but not that early," she admitted. "It'll be an adjustment for me too."

Getting to the pool isn't the only part of the sport that requires tremendous discipline. The practices are gruelling and the meets even more so.

Each meet consists of three relays, one medley and two freestyle, and a host of individual events. It's a sport of many specialized strokes: back, butterfly, breast, freestyle. Within this world though, Fitzgerald wants her girls to be generalists.

"I'm training them to be good at all the strokes."

The Aces hit the pool competitively for the first time Dec. 13 against Radnor.