Zach Gauvin, head coach of Newtown High School’s girls’ swimming and diving team, doesn’t shy away from pushing his teams to raise the bar higher than each previous season’s mark, with more practice laps in the pool, with the hope that the effort will lead to more success in the postseason.

Gauvin says, given the good shape his swimmers were in when they came to the first preseason practices, he expects to squad to put in more yardage than ever before.

“On paper, it looks like we have a really good team, but we won’t know until we put the work in and put in some miles in the pool,” Gauvin said. “I’m really excited to see what we can do.”

The usual suspects in the South-West Conference, Pomperaug of Southbury, Brookfield, and Weston, are teams that will stand between NHS and conference supremacy. Newtown placed fifth in last year’s SWC championship meet.

The trio of schools typically — in one order or another — makes up the top group in the conference, although Newtown bucked that trend with a second-place outcome a few seasons ago. All three schools are powers at the state level, too, with Pomperaug winning the Class M title and Brookfield placing second in Class M, and Weston winning the Class S championship last fall.

“Those three teams are stacked again — they’re always stacked,” Gauvin said.

So what will it take for Newtown to overcome their most formidable foes?

“Hard work,” Gauvin says. “We want to win the SWCs for the first time in a decade.”

Newtown last claimed the SWC title in 2005. In addition to ending that drought, Gauvin is striving for a top-five finish in the Class LL state championships and a top-ten outcome in the State Open.

“If we work hard every day and push ourselves, I think those goals will be achievable,” the coach says.

The team has a slogan this year: “Break out of your comfort zone and become a champion,” Gauvin said.

Strengths of the team are in backstroke, sprint freestyle, and relay events, Gauvin said.

“We’re a deep team all around but we also have the top-echelon athletes that can win those events,” the coach added.

The team lost ten swimmers to graduation, including some key point-getters, but plenty of talent returns to the water. Captains are Eliza Eggleston, who swims the butterfly and sprint freestyle events; Annika Fagerholm, who swims the breaststroke event; and Amy Martinelli, a sprint free swimmer. Other top swimmers include backstroke standout Megan McDonald and freestyler Mandy Mele.

One event in which Newtown picks up important points in each meet is diving. Some schools don’t have dive team members, opening the door for an easy one-two-three finish for Newtown, but the Hawks haven’t had much trouble earning those spots in recent memory.

“Last year, we had the best diving team in the state,” said Gauvin, noting that graduate Noelle Benson leaves a void in the diving group, but that strong newcomers join the program. The diving corps is led by Kari Djonne who, as a first-year diver last year, was fourth in the State Open.

“I think they have the potential to be the best team in the state again,” Gauvin believes.

A strong freshman class gives the coach belief that his team, overall, can be better than it was a year ago.

“We definitely have more talent this year than we had last year,” Gauvin said.

Following the season opener against Brookfield on September 9, the team has road meets against Joel Barlow of Redding and Immaculate of Danbury/Bethel. Then, the Hawks return home to host Weston at 4 pm on Friday, September 19. The team visits Pomperaug on October 2.