The Bridgewater-Raritan High School boys’ swimming team entered the new winter season with a chip on its shoulder.
With one last chance to try and win the Panthers’ first state championship under the direction of fourth-year head coach Evan Seavey, its graduating Class of 2026 seniors can certainly attest to this.
But to round out the 2025 calendar year, Bridgewater-Raritan aced one of its biggest early tests.
As part of one of the most powerful high school dual meets New Jersey’s high school swimming enthusiasts will see all year, the fourth-ranked girls’ swimming team for Bridgewater-Raritan (2-0, 2-0) rallied from a late six-point deficit to edge seventh-ranked Pingry School (0-2, 0-2) in a thriller, 88-82, on Thursday afternoon, December 11.
With Bridgewater-Raritan’s boys’ squad opening 2025-26 as the Garden State’s No. 1-ranked team, while it was missing two returning All-State swimmers against seventh-ranked Pingry, a key rival within the stacked Skyland Conference Delaware Division, everyone in attendance was treated to a pair of top-ten juggernauts squaring off against each other.
Even better yet, this all took place just a short walk across the street from the Panthers’ campus.
When the afternoon’s final swimmer touched the wall, although it is still early in the new season, one thing may be a certainty.
Bridgewater-Raritan may be in a league of its own, especially with what it has demonstrated so far without even being at full strength.
While the aforementioned girls’ meet came down to the final relay, the outcome of a boys’ victory for top-ranked Bridgewater-Raritan (3-0, 2-0) was never in doubt, as the shorthanded Panthers collected a pair of perfect 1-2-3 finishes along with eight gold medals in a 115-55 triumph over Pingry on Thursday, December 11, at the Bridgewater YMCA.
“These guys have been focused since the last meet last season,” declared after the meet by Seavey, whose squad has eclipsed 100 points in all three of its meets to open the 2025-26 season. “We certainly have goals, and we have been talking about just taking things one day at a time and one meet at a time. We want to build on the previous meet, our previous swims, and support one another.”
“So far, our guys have done that.”
Although the Panthers have won four straight Somerset County Tournament titles and three consecutive Skyland Conference Tournament crowns, one particular trophy has evaded Bridgewater-Raritan and Seavey’s first group of four-year swimmers over the past three season.
A state title.
After its first two meets this December, New Jersey’s No. 6-ranked team in Westfield High School has now won 47 consecutive meets, including four straight state sectional finals matchups over Bridgewater-Raritan going back to the 2021-22 season to halt the Panthers’ state championship bids. The Panthers and Blue Devils are very familiar with each other, as both boys’ swimming squads have squared off in the sectional finals in a whopping nine straight state tournaments going back to 2015-16.
The current tally in these nine matchups? As even as it could get: Westfield 5, Bridgewater-Raritan 4.
After the Blue Devils won the 2015-16 state sectional championship, which was then followed by victories in both the state semifinals and the state finals, Bridgewater-Raritan answered with four straight state sectional finals victories over Westfield from 2016-20 en route to winning its most recent state title in the 2017-18 season.
Since the state tournament was skipped in the 2020-21 season due to the COVID-19 pandemic, however, this rivalry between Bridgewater-Raritan and Westfield has been dominated by the Blue Devils.
In the 2021-22 season, Westfield defeated Bridgewater-Raritan 104-66 in the state sectional finals on the way to a state runner-up finish. Although the Blue Devils fell 90-80 against Cherry Hill High School East in that season’s state finals on February 26, 2022, they have not dropped a single meet since.
Now three-time reigning state champions, Westfield has defeated Bridgewater-Raritan by scores of 92-78, 86-84, and 92-78 in the last three NJSIAA North New Jersey, Section 2, Group A, Boys’ Swimming Tournament finals at the Raritan Bay YMCA in Perth Amboy.
Since Seavey took over as the Panthers’ head coach in 2022-23, Bridgewater-Raritan has been defeated just four times: three times against Westfield, with the last two results both ending the seasons of previously-undefeated Panthers’ squads.
If there is anyone who has a fresh perspective on how to reach New Jersey’s summit, it is Seavey, who helped guide Bridgewater-Raritan’s baseball team to a state championship in the spring of 2024 with head baseball coach Max Newill: Seavey’s assistant boys’ swimming coach during the winter.
Given the Panthers’ current roster with veterans and newcomers alike, Bridgewater-Raritan will certainly be a contender to hoist this winter season’s final trophy.
Bridgewater-Raritan’s four returning All-State swimmers from last season: senior Jaden Lee, sophomore Aaron Roy, junior Gregory Rydberg, junior Christopher Wasko, who make up the Panthers’ 200 medley relay and 200 free style relay teams, can all vouch for how the pain of these losses have motivated their team in the offseason.
“It’s definitely unfinished business, and for me, I’m going to keep my head down and keep working hard,” declared after the meet by Wasko, who was unfortunately unable to swim against Westfield in last season’s sectional finals due to illness. “For our team, our upperclassmen have not won a meet against Westfield, and it’s going to be one of our big goals for this season.”
“We’re a really strong team, and we’re going to work our butts off to try and get that done.”
They may be on a collision course for potential return trips to Perth Amboy on Wednesday, February 11, 2026, but while this date is especially circled on Bridgewater-Raritan’s calendar, the Panthers have shown they have picked up right where they left off so far in December.
Especially given its 115-point rout of Pingry came without the services of Lee and Roy.
Wasko swam the first leg of the meet-opening 200-meter medley relay (1:50.29) before sophomore Ryan Cervino, junior Derek Carranza, and sophomore Owen Forget closed out the Panthers’ first gold medal. Rydberg then won the 200-meter free style (2:00.62) by nearly two seconds before Cervino edged Pingry senior Max Ruffer by just over one second in the 200-meter individual medley (2:14.04).
Before the dual meet’s four-race intermission, Wasko touched the wall first in the 50-meter free style (23.97 seconds) to give Bridgewater-Raritan what proved to be an insurmountable 44-18 lead.
“Being down a couple of men is uncontrollable, but for us, it’s an opportunity to swim a bunch of new kids and work hard to win every race,” Wasko went on to say.
Ruffer (58.69 seconds) then edged Carranza (59.00 seconds) in the 100-meter butterfly for Pingry’s first gold medal after the break, but Carranza, sophomore Jayden Bui (1:01.89), and junior Nathaniel Wong (1:03.91) propelled the Panthers to a race victory and extended their team’s lead.
Wasko, Rydberg, and Forget then swept the gold, silver, and bronze medals with times of 53.23, 54.71, and 55.13 seconds, respectively, in the 100-yard freestyle to further break the meet open.
Pingry sophomore Carter Smith (4:21.37) then edged Bridgewater-Raritan junior Steven Stasiulaitis (4:21.59) in the grueling 500-meter freestyle, but again, the Big Blue were denied a chance to cut into Bridgewater-Raritan’s lead. With a 2-3-4 finish for a team being worth nine of an individual race’s 16 points, Stasiulaitis, sophomore Aidan Plent, and freshman Arsh Singh Sarao (4:37.67) ballooned the Panthers’ lead to 75-35.
Wasko, Carranza, Forget, and Rydberg then won the 200-meter free style relay (1:43.11) to collect half the meet’s 170 total points with three races to go, and Bridgewater-Raritan emphatically clinched its meet victory via a perfect 1-2-3 finish in the 100-yard back stroke courtesy of senior Samuel Meyer (1:03.44), sophomore Isaac Boguslavsky (1:03.73), and freshman Owen Xu (1:07.76).
Cervino collected one more gold medal in the 100-yard breast stroke (1:09.33) to help Bridgewater-Raritan break the century mark, and while Pingry’s 400-meter freestyle relay team of Ruffer, Smith, sophomore Daniel Andrews, and freshman Basil Glacken won the race (3:50.23), the Panthers officially ended their first three meets with an average of 117 points scored per meet.
That average result, in other words, has been a final score of 117-53, factoring in the Panthers’ two previous victories over Seton Hall Preparatory School and New Jersey’s No. 8-ranked boys’ team in Ridge High School.
Perhaps even more impressive than this, though?
The Panthers have not had a single sixth-place finish in their 33 races this season (11 races per high school swimming meet).
“Everybody has scored points in every single event so far in all three meets,” praised Seavey. “The work that our guys are doing outside is enormous. We know who our All-State swimmers are and that they get a lot of the accolades, but the appreciation within this team runs deep to everyone on the outside pulling their weight and scoring points.”
“That relentless amount of scoring points and forcing the other team to play catch-up the entire time is huge.”
In all three races, Pingry won the gold medal on Thursday afternoon, and Bridgewater-Raritan managed to collect silver medals. While the Panthers won the 200-meter medley relay, Xu, Wong, senior Gajendra Joshi, and junior Marvellous Suciayahdi (1:54.33) edged Pingry’s top squad of Ruffer, senior Owen Smith, sophomore Carter Smith, and junior Jonathan Hernandez by just 0.18 seconds for second place.
In the 50-meter freestyle, Suciayahdi (24.87 seconds) also beat out Owen Smith for the silver medal by just 0.31 seconds.
To close out the meet, Joshi, Carranza, Meyer, and senior Antony Buniowski took silver in the 400-meter free style relay (3:51.96), and another Panthers’ relay group rounded out the meet’s scoring with a sub-four-minute time courtesy of Stasiulaitis, Plent, freshman Ian Zhou, and junior Erik Pasewaldt (3:58.37).
“There is always room for improvement at every level of this sport, and staying humble is a big part of that,” Wasko said of the potential of Bridgewater-Raritan.
“We need to focus on one race at a time and not look ahead into the future.”
That future may inevitably involve another rematch against three-time reigning state champion Westfield in early February, and Bridgewater-Raritan will certainly be motivated by the NJSIAA’s Sunday, February 22 date of the state finals on the last day of the 2025-26 season.
With its 2025 slate now concluded, however, Bridgewater-Raritan will head into the district’s holiday break and the New Year on a positive note.
Bridgewater-Raritan (3-0, 2-0) will launch 2026 with its next meet at Montgomery High School (0-1, 0-1) 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. 4-ranked Hillsborough High School (3-0, 3-0) at 3 p.m. Tuesday, January 13, at the Hillsborough YMCA.
“All of our kids realize that being great swimmers is one thing, but being strong great swimmers is another thing,” concluded Seavey. “They all worked hard in the offseason not only to improve their strokes and times, but to get stronger. It shows when we have meets like this when guys are swimming four events, and we have not done that yet this year. They were building up the strength and stamina to be able to do that, and there was a huge improvement there.”
“The goal is to be able to carry that through the entire season.”