One year ago, Hall of Fame head coach Chris Levin took a glimpse into the future.
After his Bridgewater-Raritan High School girls’ swimming team saw its season come to an end in the state semifinals last season, he gazed into a crystal ball that foreshadowed one promising fact.
The last time the Panthers won a state sectional championship but failed to win the state title, Bridgewater-Raritan won it all the following school year.
That premonition came true on Wednesday morning.
Despite the adversity it faced along the way, third-ranked Bridgewater-Raritan (12-1) avenged its lone regular-season loss in dramatic fashion en route to defending its North 2, Group A state sectional title. Destiny was then never in doubt for the Panthers, who eclipsed triple digits in their final two meets and punctuated their program’s sixth state championship with a commanding 102.5-67.5 victory over reigning state champion and No. 10 ranked Cherry Hill High School East (10-4) in the NJSIAA Group A Girls’ Swimming Tournament finals Wednesday, February 25, at the Neptune Aquatic Center in Neptune.
“I’m just so proud of all 30 of them for believing and buying in on day one,” praised Levin of his group, who won his fifth state championship trophy as Bridgewater-Raritan’s head coach and his first since capturing four consecutive state titles from 2016-19. “It’s tough when you have the cards stacked against you. We’ve had a bunch of injuries right off the bat at the beginning of the year that we had to work around. We’ve had some tough Skyland Conference competition that we've battled against day in and day out. Back in January, we got a real wake-up call from [fifth-ranked Hillsborough High School]. We had to accept it but realize we could come back from that.”
“Our girls never stopped believing, and you see the results here today.”
After dropping four of their first five meets of the 2024-25 season, Bridgewater-Raritan vaulted back to the top of New Jersey’s toughest section by upsetting Westfield High School, 88-82. This gave the Panthers their North 2, Group A championship, as they had produced six straight sectional titles from 2015-20. Bridgewater-Raritan was then eliminated in the state semifinals, 98-72, by Montclair High School, which was then edged by Cherry Hill East in last season’s state finals by a score of 85.5-84.5.
A 4-2-1 surge to end the season only proved to be the beginning of great things to come for the Panthers.
“Last year, all of those girls did such an amazing job laying the groundwork for this year, and so many of them came back,” explained Levin. “I wasn’t sure if we were going to win a single meet at the beginning of [the 2024-25 season]. They did an amazing job and made it all the way to the state semifinals.”
“This gave us a little bit of a taste for success, because they knew what they were capable of.”
In this case, going the distance and becoming a state champion.
Since that loss to Montclair, its lone setback to date was a similar 98-72 loss on January 13 at Hillsborough: the Panthers’ chief rival of 2025-26 and eventual Skyland Conference Delaware Division champion. When both teams squared off again in the semifinal round of the NJSIAA North New Jersey, Section 2, Group A sectional tournament on February 9, Bridgewater-Raritan was seeded at just No. 3, while Hillsborough was No. 2 only behind top-seeded Westfield: New Jersey’s eighth-ranked team overall.
With two major hurdles still in front of it after opening the state tournament with a huge victory, 117-53, against Hunterdon Central Regional High School, Bridgewater-Raritan found itself in an uphill battle to defend its state sectional title.
At least to those outside of its locker room, especially since it had to make up at least 13 points against Hillsborough in just over one month.
In danger of being two-and-through in the state tournament against Hillsborough, the underdog Panthers staged a miraculous rally from down 12 points against the Raiders to tie the meet and force a historic tiebreaker situation. This included at least one race that went in favor of Bridgewater-Raritan by just 0.01 seconds, which would have resulted in an outright victory for Hillsborough had it gone in the Raiders’ favor. Nonetheless, the mere advantage of 37 power points (3,707-3,670) was the difference for the Panthers, who ultimately shook up the Group A landscape and survived, 86-85, to return to the state sectional finals.
After heavily-favored Hillsborough was eliminated, Bridgewater-Raritan proved it was the team to beat all along.
It then decisively knocked out Westfield, 93.5-76.5, from the state tournament for the third straight year, repeating as state sectional champions. The Panthers then cruised to a 100-70 victory over No. 17-ranked East Brunswick High School in the state semifinals to set the stage for their championship matchup against another state powerhouse in Cherry Hill East.
A result that may only prove to be just the beginning of a dynasty for the Panthers.
“It’s very easy to let the doubt creep in, but you have to get rid of that and believe in what you are capable of from day one,” Levin said. “Our girls buy in, go out there, and realize that they are capable of this stuff. We just kind of built off of that. We set long-term goals, of course, but we take it one meet at a time and one swim at a time. You can’t just go from 0 to 60, but you have to take the wins as you get them and build off of those.”
“That’s exactly what the girls did.”
In a dominating state finals performance that saw Bridgewater-Raritan never trail and collect eight of the meet’s 11 gold medals, senior Kimaya Desai, freshman Mila Daniels, junior Merah DeRosa, and freshman Lily Tamedl tallied a two-second margin of victory in the 200-yard medley relay (1:52.62) over Cherry Hill East’s ‘A’ lane: junior Erin Brennan, senior Sarah Boucher, freshman Ava Barone, and freshman Lia Vogel.
Clocking in at third place (1:56.38) by exactly three seconds for Bridgewater-Raritan were freshman Valentina Zirpoli, senior Claire Hegedus, freshman Janani Senthilkumar, and junior Diya Poleti, who helped the Panthers open up a 10-4 lead they never relinquished.
Freshman Gia Larosa (2:00.43) then led the way in a stunning sweep of the 200-yard freestyle by the Panthers, who saw Tamedl (2:02.13) and senior Riccia Castone (2:03.31) produce second and third place, respectively. This extended Bridgewater-Raritan’s lead to 23-7, and the Panthers maintained a double-digit lead the rest of the morning.
“We really just depended on each other,” Larosa said of her gold medal and the Panthers’ overall mindset at the Neptune Aquatic Center, which served as the relocated venue of the state finals due to the weekend blizzard’s postponement of the event from Sunday morning to Wednesday morning. “When I saw that Lily and Riccia got 2-3, it made me really happy. I was really happy that all of my teammates and I were able to pull off a victory here.”
“We put so much hard work and effort into this team, so I’m really happy with the outcome.”
Daniels then cruised to a victory in the 200-yard individual medley (2:08.63) before DeRosa comfortably led the way in the 50-yard freestyle (25.25 seconds) to give Bridgewater-Raritan a 42.5-19.5 lead at the four-race intermission.
Bridgewater-Raritan never took its foot off of the gas.
To cap off her individual races in team meets this season, Daniels rolled to a 3.2-second margin of victory in the 100-yard butterfly (58.27 seconds), and the Panthers’ 1-3-4 finish extended their lead to 53.5-24.5: just 32 points away from a state championship with six races remaining.
“It was definitely a new experience compared to club swimming,” Daniels reflected of her freshman campaign for Bridgewater-Raritan.
“Our upperclassmen had our backs, helped us grow through our first meets, and helped us adapt to the new environment.”
Junior Laura Merch then sent Cherry Hill East to its first gold medal in the 500-yard freestyle (5:12.11), but the reigning state champion Cougars settled for a split of the race’s 16 points. In the 200-yard freestyle relay, Boucher, Vogel, junior Laila Lawson, and Merch (1:43.75) then edged out Bridgewater-Raritan’s quartet of Hegedus, Tamedl, Senthilkumar, and Larosa by just 0.43 seconds for first place. To cap off arguably the meet’s most thrilling race, the Cougars’ B’ lane of senior Elizabeth Keating, freshman Janie Genzer, freshman Noelle Terry, and senior Julia Terry touched out for third place (1:49.43) over Panthers freshman Maria Stakias, freshman Liv Blomquist, senior Crystal Chen, and Poleti (1:49.49).
Cherry Hill East’s 10 points were its most amongst all of the meet’s races, but amazingly, this was Bridgewater-Raritan’s first of just two sixth-place finishes as a further testament to its overall depth.
With the Panthers still in front, 75.5-48.5, the Bridgewater-Raritan girls’ team not only clinched their state championship in the 100-yard backstroke after Desai (1:01.74), Castone (1:03.50), and junior Apurva Ramasamy (1:03.50) went 1-3-5 to extend their team’s lead to 85.5-54.5.
During what ended up being a dual state championship meet with the Panthers’ No. 1 ranked boys’ swimming squad, Bridgewater-Raritan’s boys’ team also clinched its state finals victory and perfect season in the first leg of this 100-yard back stroke en route to a 108-62 victory over fourth-ranked Hillsborough High School.
“To have the boys there to help support us and for us to be there and help support the boys today could not have been sweeter,” said Levin, who coaches poolside with assistant coach Laura Karns along with boys’ head coach Evan Seavey and assistant boys’ coach Max Newill. “It’s so great watching them grow and progress, because we always talk about the swim program.”
“We are one program together as one.”
With two races left and the state finals’ outcomes already decided, only one lingering question remained: would both Panthers’ squads tally triple digits?
That answer was an emphatic ‘yes’ to round out the historic morning for Bridgewater-Raritan.
Although Boucher (1:09.24) won the 100-yard breast stroke for Cherry Hill East, Tamedl (1:09.63), Hegedus (1:12.60), and sophomore Anika Nandi (1:13.20) followed suit at 2-3-4 to give the Panthers’ the overall team victory in that race. Leading 94.5-61.5 heading into the 400-yard free style relay finale, DeRosa, Larosa, Castone, and Daniels rolled to a gold medal (3:48.91) to send Bridgewater-Raritan over the century mark to put an exclamation point on its sixth state championship.
And eventually, into the water for pictures together as a program after both individual boys’ and girls’ squads were awarded their respective state championship trophies and cardboard banners.
“It is definitely really amazing and is something that I will remember for my whole life,” Larosa said of both the Panthers’ boys’ and girls’ teams jumping into the Neptune pool together for group photos after the dual meet.
“I’m just really proud of both our girls’ team and our boys’ team, and thankful for our coaches and my teammates.”
Bridgewater-Raritan’s sweep of the Group A state championships was last accomplished by the Panthers’ boys’ and girls’ swimming teams simultaneously in 2017-18. Class of 2026 seniors Anna Blomquist, Riccia Castone, Crystal Chen, Kimaya Desai, Colleen Donahue, Charlotte Falcon, Claire Hegedus, Julie Imwalle, Tanisha Malhotra, and Taashvi Shah were sent into the sunset with a 33-14-2 record in team meets over their four years on campus, including back-to-back state sectional championships and a 12-1 senior year with a state title to cap it off.
But if history continues to repeat itself, the Panthers are far from done.
Levin’s 2014-15 squad won the state sectional championship before falling to Montgomery High School, 98-72, in the state finals. Afterwards, not only did the Panthers win the state championship the following year, but they did so on Wednesday morning after failing to win it last season.
This launched Bridgewater-Raritan’s previous run of four consecutive state championships to end the 2010s, so you can say the future is bright in the tail end of the 2020s, especially with the multitude of underclassmen slated to return alone.
“This is definitely going to motivate us in the beginning of next season,” concluded Daniels of what lies ahead moving forward for Bridgewater-Raritan, which will officially conclude its 2025-26 campaign at the NJSIAA Swimming Individual Championships Saturday, February 28 (preliminaries) and Sunday, March 1 (finals) at the Gloucester Institute of Technology in Sewell.
“We have to put in the hard work now to get the same result, but we need to remember how we felt when we won.”