There was never an offseason for the Bridgewater-Raritan High School boys’ swimming team.
Even though they saw another promising campaign come to what they felt was an abrupt end in the state sectional finals against their archrival last year, the Panthers went right back to work with that potential matchup again circled on their calendars.
That is especially true for Bridgewater-Raritan seniors like Gabe Quevedo, whose particular offseason was much busier than usual.
Before he sprang back into the pool for his fourth and final year of swimming, Quevedo was busy playing football for Bridgewater-Raritan this past fall. His team went on a magical ride, which included the program’s first-ever state sectional championship after the Panthers knocked off Bayonne High School in the finals of the NJSIAA North New Jersey, Section 2, Group 5 Tournament.
The Panthers’ memorable run came to an end on November 21 after Bridgewater-Raritan fell to Passaic County Technical Institute in the state semifinals. Still, there was no time for Quevedo to catch his breath.
Not only because swimmers cannot breathe directly under the water, but also because they compete in.
The NJSIAA’s first day of practice for the boys’ swimming season was four days before the Panthers’ state semifinals football game, which was just under three weeks before Bridgewater-Raritan’s season debut in the pool at Seton Hall Preparatory School.
That marked just the beginning of what has been a dream journey for the Panthers so far.
One that has required heavy stamina and endurance in the pool alone, so for athletes like Quevedo, this has undoubtedly made his pair of fourth-year Bridgewater-Raritan skippers, football coach DJ Catalano, and boys’ swimming coach Evan Seavey, proud.
“I could not have done it without my conditioning and my coaches helping me out switching from sport to sport,” Quevedo reflected on this immediate transition from the turf to the pool as part of what has now been two state sectional championship seasons during his senior year so far.
As a football player at Bridgewater-Raritan, especially with the fresh taste of being a state sectional champion to launch his senior year, Quevedo shared an added appreciation for the one common objective he and his fellow swimmers had in the winter.
Being the last team standing in New Jersey.
But to do that in a year, Bridgewater-Raritan has stood alone as the No. 1-ranked team in all of New Jersey; he and his fellow Class of 2026 seniors had to slay a dragon that has stood in their way for what felt like an eternity.
That villain’s role was held by three-time reigning state champion Westfield High School, which has eliminated the Panthers in the state sectional finals each of the last four seasons, including all three years the Panthers’ graduating Class of 2026 seniors have been on campus.
On Wednesday evening, their fourth and final time against the Blue Devils in the state sectional championship was finally the charm.
Not only did top-seeded Bridgewater-Raritan (10-0) avenge four straight losses in the sectional finals to second-seeded and No. 16-ranked Westfield (8-4) to win its first state sectional crown since 2019-20. The Panthers emphatically ended the Blue Devils’ three-year reign atop the Garden State’s summit after cruising to a 118-52 victory in the finals of the NJSIAA North New Jersey, Group A Tournament, Wednesday, February 11, at the Raritan Bay Area YMCA in Perth Amboy.
“During our freshman year, we looked up to upper-level students like Drew Rossi,” Quevedo said after the victory of the Bridgewater-Raritan High School Class of 2023 seniors during his first year in the pool. “We felt like we had to win the next one for them, so we were extra motivated to work in the offseason to get faster and better.”
“Everybody here was doing it for our past teams.”
Rossi: the Panthers’ most frequent gold medalist amongst his senior class in 2022-23 for Bridgewater-Raritan, saw his final season come to a crushing end in the sectional finals, 92-78, against Westfield back on February 17, 2023. In that meet, Quevedo closed out his freshman season in a pair of races: the 200-yard medley relay and the 200-yard freestyle relay, but his lanes each fell just short of a top-three spot needed to secure at least two points.
Losing two points in that fashion alone twice resulted in a pair of four-point swings in favor of Westfield. While a handful of other races were razor-thin across the board, an eight-point swing in Bridgewater-Raritan’s favor would have been enough to clinch the 86 points needed to win that meet.
Heartbreaking, to say the least.
“This has been something that has been weighing this team down for a long while,” said current Bridgewater-Raritan senior Antony Buniowski, who swam with his older brother from the Panthers’ Class of 2024: Kacper, in this aforementioned meet and each of his first two years on campus. “We’ve gotten so close before, including where the only difference was two points, so looking at that scoreboard [on Wednesday evening] was amazing. It’s like a curse being lifted, and everyone on the team is stoked about it.”
“Now, we’re going to be shooting for states.”
If that first loss to Westfield was not painful enough, Kacper Buniowski and his fellow Class of 2024 seniors’ final season came to an even more gut-wrenching end when the top-ranked Blue Devils edged the second-ranked Panthers, 86-84, in a meet that arguably decided who went on to win the state title.
The Blue Devils rolled afterwards to accomplish that for a second straight season, but they were not done.
As part of what ended up being a historic run at the top for Westfield that just ended this season, the Blue Devils went on to hand the Panthers another 92-78 loss in last season’s state sectional finals.
Although Bridgewater-Raritan was not at full strength in that meet, it was nonetheless denied that elusive state sectional championship trophy, despite its dominating string of division, county, and conference crowns it has hauled in along the way.
But in the 2025-26 season, when the Panthers have seemed invincible, Westfield has proven mortal in comparison, despite another solid season and a top-20 state ranking for the Blue Devils.
On December 23, No. 11-ranked Scotch Plains-Fanwood High School edged Westfield, 86.5-83.5, to snap the Blue Devils’ 48-meet winning streak as part of three regular-season losses: Westfield’s most since going 9-4 in 2018-19 with a 107-63 loss against Bridgewater-Raritan to end that year. After Wednesday evening’s result, the Blue Devils’ four total losses were as many as it had combined from 2019-2025, when Westfield won 79 of its 83 meets and three state championships this season.
With the door cracked open on Wednesday evening, Bridgewater-Raritan kicked it down and just kept running.
“Coming into my senior year, I was still a bit slow and getting into the groove of things,” continued Antony Buniowski. “But being surrounded by such an amazing team that believed in themselves and everyone as a whole to finally beat our rival in the high school swim world is just amazing.”
“I have no words for it.”
Frankly, neither did anyone in attendance, especially with recent history on Westfield’s side.
Factoring in Wednesday evening’s addition to the epic B-R / Westfield postseason rivalry that has taken place in the sectional finals each boys’ swimming season since 2015-16, the Panthers’ 118-52 victory on Wednesday evening was the most lopsided result in this timespan.
Right after the meet’s opening horn, Bridgewater-Raritan wasted no time setting the tone and stunning the crowd, as Quevedo, Buniowski, and 10 other Panthers’ swimmers swept the top three spots in the 200-yard medley relay. As part of a whopping nine gold medals for Bridgewater-Raritan in the meet’s 11 races, senior Jaden Lee, junior Marvellous Suciayahdi, junior Derek Carranza, and sophomore Aaron Roy cruised to a 1:34.79. To further showcase the Panthers’ depth, their ‘B’ and ‘C’ lanes touched the wall next just 0.53 seconds apart, as sophomore Isaac Boguslavsky, junior Nathaniel Wong, sophomore Owen Forget, and Quevedo completed their end of the race at 1:41.25.
Clocking in at 1:41:78, the bronze medal was won by senior Nish Brahmbhatt, senior Matthew Enriquez, senior Gajendra Joshi, and Buniowski, whose final touch was a comfortable 2.32 seconds faster than Westfield’s top-finishing lane.
Westfield sophomore James Kavanaugh then answered by winning the 200-yard freestyle (1:44.70) to help split the race’s 16 available points, but Bridgewater-Raritan still had a 20-10 lead and remained ahead for good.
On top of that, the Panthers continued to light up the scoreboard.
Sophomore Ryan Cervino responded by winning the 200-yard individual medley (1:55.58) before sophomore Chris Wasko (21.27 seconds), Roy (21.47 seconds), and Suciayahdi (22.28 seconds) finished 1-2-3 in the 50-yard free style to balloon Bridgewater-Raritan’s lead to an impressive 44-18 at the four-race intermission.
Lee then rolled to a first-place finish in the 100-yard butterfly (49.68 seconds) before Wasko followed suit in the 100-yard freestyle (47.01 seconds). In the meet’s longest event: the 500-yard freestyle junior Steven Stasiulaitis dominated to the tune of a 4:49.67 for first place, while sophomore Aidan Plent (5:01.79) collected the race’s silver medal.
Sophomore Jayden Bui’s fourth-place finish (5:05.23) rounded off that event’s scoring and put Bridgewater-Raritan in position to clinch the meet victory.
Leading 78-32 heading into the 200-yard freestyle relay, the Panthers officially eliminated Westfield when Wasko, Suciayahdi, Forget, and junior Greg Rydberg snatched the gold medal (1:30.08) to put Bridgewater-Raritan at the 86-point milestone.
Carranza, Joshi, Quevedo, and Buniowski tallied two more points via their third-place finish (1:32.69), and Bridgewater-Raritan’s victory was mathematically sealed after it led 88-36.
“We have so much depth on our team right now,” explained Buniowski, whose time with Quevedo in this race was nearly three seconds faster than when they also swam together in this same relay against Westfield in 2022-23. “Even with all of our seniors being done after this year, we hope this streak can continue.”
“I’m so optimistic about our team and the future.”
Roy (52.08 seconds), senior Sam Meyer (55.56 seconds), and Cervino (55.58 seconds) then helped Bridgewater-Raritan crack the century mark with two races remaining after sweeping the top three spots in the 100-yard backstroke, which extended the Panthers’ lead to 101-39. Lee’s time of 58.45 seconds for first place in the 100-yard breast stroke then set the stage for the meet’s finale, which saw Forget, Carranza, Joshi, and Meyer take silver (3:25.54) in the 400-yard free style relay to lead the way for Bridgewater-Raritan.
Rounding out the scoring for the Panthers were Stasiulaitis, Plent, junior Max Weinstein, and freshman Owen Xu, who took third place (3:28.69).
Westfield tallied its second and final gold medal in this relay (3:22.53) courtesy of Kavanagh, freshman James Sletteland, sophomore Spencer Grauch, and senior Dylan Lagrimas: one of three Blue Devils’ seniors with Liam Mulkeen and Logan Welsh who contributed to their team’s historic run atop Group A for the last three seasons.
But a new Group A state champion will now be crowned after Bridgewater-Raritan’s dominant run to its division, county, conference, and sectional titles so far in 2025-26.
“I don’t think I had to motivate this group to win this sectional final, because they were motivated for the last 364 days after last year’s sectional final,” revealed by Bridgewater-Raritan head coach Evan Seavey, whose undefeated team has eclipsed 100 points in nine out of its 10 victories after reaching this milestone again on its most significant stage of the season to date. “They were hungry right away and were talking about it immediately after that meeting. Their goal was to win this meet this year, and these guys worked their tails off the entire year building strength, endurance, and working on their stroke to be able to do what they did today.”
“I’m just beyond proud of their work ethic, determination, and focus.”
While it is in uncharted territory under Seavey, who won the program’s first state sectional championship since 2019-20 and since he took over for Hall-Of-Famer Sean Foley as head coach in 2022-23, Bridgewater-Raritan (10-0, North 2 champion) will head into the Group A state semifinals as the No. 1 seed of the four surviving teams: No. 4 ranked Hillsborough High School (9-1, Central), No. 6 ranked Cherry Hill High School East (11-1, South), and No. 19 ranked Ridgewood High School (9-2, North 1) being Wednesday evening’s remaining sectional champions.
Based on the NJSIAA’s online schedule and criteria of seeding the state semifinals according to original power points, the Panthers’ state semifinals matchup will be contested against the team slotted as the No. 4 seed.
Therefore, next up for top-seeded Bridgewater-Raritan will be its state semifinals debut against fourth-seeded Ridgewood at 5 p.m. Wednesday, February 18, at Passaic County Technical Institute in Wayne, in a rematch of a regular-season meeting won 117-53 by the Panthers on January 21 in Bergen County.
“They know that the goal all season has been to win five championships,” revealed Seavey of his team’s paramount objective to sweep the division, county, conference, sectional, and state titles. “They have been laser-focused on that all year long. As happy as they are with the win tonight, they are continuing to be locked in, because they know there is still much to accomplish.”
“That didn’t even take me saying that, because they’re saying it themselves.”
To cap off this doubleheader, second-seeded Hillsborough and third-seeded Cherry Hill East will square off at 6:30 p.m. at this venue.
Bridgewater-Raritan already has a 105-65 road victory over Hillsborough on its resume. Still, it has not faced Cherry Hill East since meeting in four consecutive state finals matchups from 2017 to 2020. The Panthers’ lone victory against the Cougars in this span came in 2017-18: the last time Bridgewater-Raritan won the state title.
The winners of both state semifinal matchups will then open up the eight-meet slate of state championships in the Group A state finals at 9 a.m. Sunday, February 22, at Rutgers University in Piscataway.
No matter what happens over the next couple of weeks, Bridgewater-Raritan will be represented at the NJSIAA Individual Swimming Championships, which will hold preliminaries Saturday, February 28, at the Gloucester County Institute of Technology in Sewell. The finals will be contested the next day at this pool, Sunday, March 1, to close out the season officially.
One that will set the Panthers up to quickly pick up where they leave off for the foreseeable future.
“This swim season is wonderful, and I feel like we have a bright future ahead of us,” previewed Quevedo of what lies ahead for Bridgewater-Raritan, regardless of where its 2025-26 season comes to an end.
“We might be really good, but the incoming freshman class is going to be even better.”