You wouldn’t have thought from looking at the Wellesley High School boys swim and dive team’s regular season record—3-4—that they would have been contenders to win the Bay State League championship meet at the end of January, but the Raiders have been on the rise.

Indeed, Wellesley won the conference title at Brookline High School by 9 points over runner-up Newton North, which had beaten Wellesley in the season opener.

“In a meet like that, 9 points is about as narrow of a victory as you can get!” says Coach Doug Curtin.

Congratulations to the Boys Swim and Dive Team winning the Bay State Conference Meet pic.twitter.com/WBPOlEaFzf
— Wellesley Raiders (@wellesleysports) January 28, 2025

The team has shown growth throughout the season, Curtin said, noting that the Raiders topped Needham and Brookline to finish the regular season schedule strong.

For more context on why the Raiders were able to pull off the conference win, Curtin points to two big things.

“We had a lot of sophomores and juniors really make some big leaps (Noah Rogers, Mason Chou, Aidan Abazaji) and they scored big points at our league meet with massive time drops from where they started out at our first meet. For example Noah Rogers started the season out at a 2:09 in his 200 free and ended at a 1:58. Those are huge!” Curtin said.

“Second, to win a championship league meet, you need depth and a well-rounded team. We won the meet without actually WINNING any event at the meet (no first places). That means we racked up a ton of points from 2nd-12th and our relays scored big (especially our B relays),” he added.

This marked the team’s second straight conference title; before winning last year, the Raiders hadn’t taken the league championship since 2002.

Now some members of the team ready for sectionals and Division 1 state finals on Feb. 9 at MIT and Feb. 16 at Boston University, respectively.

More: Wellesley High girls’ swim & dive team takes 5th straight state title

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