Speed may win races, but depth ultimately wins meets.
When you match up elite high school swimming programs that possess both of these traits, along with excellent coaching, such as crosstown rivals Bridgewater-Raritan High School and Pingry School, overall talent may naturally set one team apart from the other.
On Thursday afternoon, December 11, New Jersey’s top-ranked boys’ swimming team in Bridgewater-Raritan showed why its talent may put it into a league of its own in 2025-26, as the Panthers cruised to a 115-55 victory over seventh-ranked Pingry despite missing two All-State swimmers on their side of Bridgewater-Raritan’s successful dual meet.
But what is the difference when two elite, well-coached squads are neck and neck on paper?
That would be whichever squad digs the deepest on that given day, which is what the reigning state sectional champion and fourth-ranked Bridgewater-Raritan girls’ swimming team did against seventh-ranked Pingry.
Despite Bridgewater-Raritan (2-0, 2-0) sweeping the top three spots of the 100-meter butterfly right after the dual meet’s intermission to vault ahead by 12 points, Pingry (0-2, 0-2) punched back with victories in four straight races to take a six-point lead with two races to go. With her team virtually out of wiggle room, Bridgewater-Raritan freshman Mila Daniels (1:16.72) then edged Pingry freshman Sophia Karnaugh (1:18.86) for first place in the 100-meter breaststroke to tie the meet and set up a decisive final race.
Daniels then closed out her group’s eight-and-a-half second margin of victory over the Big Blue in the 400-meter free relay (4:15.04) with junior Merah DeRosa, freshman Lily Tamedl, and freshman Janani Senthilkumar to seal Bridgewater-Raritan’s statement come-from-behind triumph, 88-82, in a thriller against Pingry Thursday, December 11, at the Bridgewater YMCA in Bridgewater.
“When I scored it out ahead of time, I thought we were going to need first and third [in the 400-free relay] to win the meet,” revealed Hall-of-Fame Bridgewater-Raritan girls’ head coach Chris Levin after his team’s victory. “But I would say that the 100-butterfly was a massive surprise, because I was expecting [Pingry] to go up some points in that event.”
“Our three girls stepped up so big there.”
Senior TingTing Luo highlighted back-to-back gold medals for Pingry, which opened the meet with a big victory from its A-lane of the 200-meter medley relay (2:06.22) with Luo, sophomore Hailey Rushforth, sophomore Giulia Caligiuiri, and junior Maria Pontoriero. Individually, Luo then tallied a three-and-a-half second margin of victory in the 200-meter freestyle (2:15.30) to help the Big Blue jump out to a 17-13 lead after two races.
Daniels then rolled to a five-second victory in the 200-meter individual medley (2:25.59) for Bridgewater-Raritan, which collected a 1-3-4 finish to vault back in front. Although Pontoriero (27.78 seconds) won the 50-meter freestyle for Pingry, DeRosa (29.62 seconds), Senthilkumar (29.67 seconds), and senior Claire Hegedus (30.39 seconds) forced the Big Blue to settle for a tie in this race to keep the Panthers ahead, 32-30, at the dual meet’s four-race intermission.
Junior Kaylee Cerbone (1:11.51), freshman Valentina Zirpoli (1:14.18), and Senthilkumar (1:14.21) then swept the gold, silver, and bronze medals in the 100-meter butterfly for a coveted 13-3 result, which sent Bridgewater-Raritan to its largest lead of the afternoon, 45-33, and put it into the driver’s seat at the meet’s midpoint.
“It’s always great to be ahead, but it’s always important to keep swimming as a team and fight for every point possible,” Cerbone shared after the meet.
“Every point matters in a meet like this.”
Even though Pingry won a gold medal in six of the meet’s first eight races, not only did Bridgewater-Raritan take silver in all seven of the meet’s first eight races outside of the 200-meter individual medley, which saw the Panthers collect a 1-3-4 finish courtesy of Daniels, junior Ali Tamedl (2:30.61), and sophomore Anika Nandi (2:43.18). The Panthers only had one sixth-place finish in its 11 races, and three of their five fifth-place finishes amongst the meet’s eight individual races came by an average of just 2.63 seconds over Pingry’s sixth-place swimmer.
As each fifth-place finish in an individual race is worth one point and sixth-place finishes result in zero points, had each of these three results alone gone Pingry’s way, the race would have ended in a rare 85-85 tie.
That actually occurred between these two teams back on December 13, 2022, in Basking Ridge.
So imagine those numbers for fourth place versus fifth place, third place versus fourth place, and so on: something that Coach Levin preaches to his swimmers, whether they are veterans or newcomers.
“We talk a lot about being gritty every single stroke to the very finish, and you have to push it all the way to that last stroke,” Levin reflected the importance of scoring by any means necessary: eight points, four points, or two points via the top three spots in a relay race, as well as six points, four points, three points, two points, or one point via the top five spots in six lanes of individual races. “Our girls really took that to heart leaving it all out there in the pool. You could see all three of those butterfliers kicking it into high gear laps three and four.”
“They did what it took to put the team on their backs, and that set the tone for the rest of the meet.”
While Bridgewater-Raritan was over halfway towards the magic number of ‘86’ points needed to win the meet, which had 170 total points at stake, it was far from over even after five races.
Luo then won the 100-meter free style (1:01.81) for Pingry, which then saw junior Kaylie Gao take the 500-meter free style (5:00.59) by just nearly three full seconds over Bridgewater-Raritan senior Kimaya Desai (5:03.33). After this long, grueling event, Pingry sophomore Maddie Hand (5:10.02) edged Nandi (5:11.78) for third place, but Cerbone’s fifth-place finish (5:24.24) by two-and-a-half seconds ended up paying dividends heading into the meet’s finale.
Although it did not matter in the end since Bridgewater-Raritan scored 10 of the meet’s final 14 points via the 400-meter free relay, losing that one point would have put a lot more pressure on Bridgewater-Raritan, as just a first-place finish would not have been enough to win the meet outright.
“Going into that last relay, we knew that if we gave it our all, that was all we could have done,” Cerbone said. “It’s a different experience when it’s coming down to the last relay. It happened against Westfield last year, and it makes you feel extra great to win.”
“It shows what our team can really do.”
Trailing 59-51 after the 500-meter freestyle, Pingry rolled to a gold medal in the 200-meter freestyle relay (1:56.26) courtesy of Pontoriero, Karnaugh, Luo, and senior Gabby DeLorenzo. Its 1-3 finish cut Bridgewater-Raritan’s lead to 63-61, but in the 100-meter back stroke, the Big Blue took a 73-67 lead thanks to a momentum-swinging 1-2-4 finish by Pontoriero (1:08.91), Rushforth (1:09.45), and DeLorenzo (1:13.06).
“I’ve known [Big Blue head coach Deirdre O’Mara] for decades now, so I know Pingry has a lot of talent and is super well-coached,” praised Levin of Pingry’s squad. “Sure enough, Pingry was chipping away and they clawed their way right back into it and pulled ahead before the breast stroke. Our girls answered right back, and I figured at that point, we had enough power in breast stroke to hopefully jump back at about even.”
“That’s exactly what we did.”
Daniels (1:16.72), Ali Tamedl (1:22.72), and freshman Lily Menke (1:27.53) highlighted a 1-3-4 result for Bridgewater-Raritan in the 100-meter breast stroke, and fittingly, the Panthers rallied to knot the meet at 78-78 heading into the 400-free relay finale.
At that point, the math was simple for both teams.
Touch the wall first to win the meet, and Bridgewater-Raritan, its aforementioned A-lane of DeRosa, Lily Tamedl, Senthilkumar, and Daniels never appeared to be in doubt.
This notably consisted of the final three swimmers for Bridgewater-Raritan being part of a freshman Class of 2029 that Levin has been optimistic about since the end of last season, which saw Bridgewater-Raritan surge from a 1-4 start to upsetting Westfield High School in the state sectional finals for its first sectional championships since 2019-20.
Like its victory against Pingry on Thursday afternoon, its triumph over Westfield was also by a final result of 88-82, and that meet was also tied at 78-78 heading into the final 400-meter free relay race ultimately won by Bridgewater-Raritan.
Although the Panthers ultimately fell 95-75 to Montclair High School in last season’s state semifinals, despite losing four of five meets to open last season, Bridgewater-Raritan is now 6-1-1 against public schools going back to this moment in time. After Thursday afternoon, this now includes at least one victory against each of its following Skyland Conference Delaware Division rivals who are currently state-ranked girls’ teams: Hillsborough High School, Pingry School, and Ridge High School.
One year after allowing an average of 101 total points in losses against Ridge and Pingry to open last season, the Panthers now have statement victories of 107-63 and 88-82, respectively, over these two squads just over the first three days of the new season.
As Levin previously foresaw at the end of last season, in their high school debuts, Bridgewater-Raritan’s freshmen have also quickly picked up right where last year’s graduated members of the Class of 2025 left off.
Perhaps another dynasty is brewing for the Panthers, especially since the last time they won a sectional title but failed to win the state title in 2014-15, they responded with four consecutive state championships from 2016-19. Bridgewater-Raritan won the state sectional championship last season in 2024-25, and while it did not hoist the state championship trophy, although it is still early, this comparison Levin alluded to after his team’s state semifinals loss to Montclair last year therefore seems to be aging well just one week into the 2025-26 season.
In fact, to highlight what have been impressive debuts for his freshmen, Daniels has particularly won seven of her eight races to open up what looks to be a superstar career in the making alone for Bridgewater-Raritan. This includes a perfect four-for-four mark in individual races for what may be among her first of many gold medals in a Panthers uniform, especially since they came in rivalry races against swimmers throughout arguably New Jersey’s best division.
“Mila is on another level,” Levin said of Daniels. “Her tenacity, drive, and desire to leave it all out there and do whatever it takes is second-to-none. In my 21 years of coaching, I would be hard-pressed to come up with someone that is a tougher fighter out there than what I have seen from her so far.”
“We’re only two meets in, but from what I’ve heard leading into this year about her and from what I’ve seen so far, there’s not much that she can’t do.”
Next up for Bridgewater-Raritan (2-0, 2-0) is an opportunity to remain perfect in the Skyland Conference Delaware Division to close out 2025, as the Panthers will serve as host to Mount Saint Mary Academy (0-2, 0-2) at 3 p.m. Tuesday, December 16, in Bridgewater. The Panthers’ next dual meet will then occur after the turn of the calendar to 2026, when Bridgewater-Raritan’s boys’ and girls’ squads will both travel to Montgomery High School at 4 p.m. Tuesday, January 6, in Skillman.
After a Thursday, January 8 trip to Princeton High School, the Panthers’ final meet within their grueling Skyland Conference Delaware Division schedule will be a showdown at New Jersey’s No. 3 ranked girls’ squad in Hillsborough High School (3-0, 3-0) at 3 p.m. Tuesday, January 13, at the Hillsborough YMCA in Hillsborough.
Both Hillsborough and Bridgewater-Raritan settled for an 85-85 tie in their last regular-season meeting, but as part of the Panthers’ state sectional championship, Bridgewater-Raritan went on to defeat the Raiders by a score of 89-81 in the semifinal round of the state sectional playoffs.
“Every meet is so much fun win or lose, but this is a great confidence boost, and it gives us a lot of hope in our team,” concluded Cerbone about Bridgewater-Raritan’s successful opening week to the season. “It’s so amazing to be cheered on and to cheer for our teammates. We spend a lot of time together, and we become a family by the end of the day. It’s really important for us to cheer on everybody’s wins, but to be there as well for everybody’s losses. We need to make sure everybody knows that they have a special part on our team, and I think we can make it really far this year.”
“There will obviously be a lot of good teams in our way, but as long as we keep fighting, we’ll get better from here.”