Cherry Hill East regains Public A boys’ swimming state championship with rout of Bridgewater-Raritan

The Cherry Hill East boys’ swim team regained its advantage over Bridgewater-Raritan on Saturday, winning its second Public A title in three years.

The top-seeded Cougars defeated the Panthers, 110-60, as the teams met in the championship for the third consecutive year. Cherry Hill East won the first meeting in 2017 and have been in the Public A final every year since 2014. East also won its 11th straight sectional title this season.

“Going into the meet, we were pretty excited because we were getting a level of competition that matches our level of confidence,” said Cherry Hill East coach Joe Cucinotti.

Cherry Hill East took first in nine of 11 events on Saturday, falling only in the 50- and 100-meter freestyle races in which Panthers sophomore Trent Russano finished on top.

Cougars junior Alex Volin recorded his best time of the year in the 200 freestyle, in which the team went 1-2-4. He took first in the 500 freestyle and was part of the winning 400 freestyle relay.

It was the medley relay, though, that Cucinotti said really set the tone.

“It’s the first event, and both of our [combined] times were close to each other," Cucinotti said of his team and the Panthers. "That came to a surprise to us because we haven’t seen a lot of competition in that event throughout the year.”

From there, Cherry Hill East saw the difference in scores extend all the way to the finish.

“Instead of winning races," Cucinotti said. “We won events."