North Brunswick teams are works in progress
Swim teams hope to shine at GMC meet

Above left, North Brunswick's Nakita Nadkami competes in the 200 Individual medley against East Brunswick on Tuesday. Above, Cuyler Peragallo also swims the breaststroke leg of the 200 IM, while below, Eric Chiles competes in the backstroke leg of the distance medley.

It hasn't been your typically strong year for the North Brunswick High School swim teams so far, but the potential is there for both teams to emerge as forces down the stretch.

With the Greater Middlesex Conference Championships (Jan. 27 at Princeton) rapidly approaching, head coach Greg Anderson's squads are hoping to reach that potential before long.

On Tuesday, both squads fell in a dual meet against East Brunswick, though they certainly had their shares of bright spots.

In the boys meet, the Raiders lost, 113-57, to fall to 3-4 on the year. However, they got strong performances out of Kevin Chibbaro, who won the 50 freestyle (22.77) and 100 freestyle (52.00), Andy Rose, who won the 200 individual medley (2:13.00) and the 100 breaststroke (1:06.72), as well as the 200 freestyle relay team of Rose, Chibbaro, Alex Bugowski and Ian Holubiak, who won in 1:37.38.

PHOTOS BY SCOTT PILLING staff

On the girls side, the Raiders dropped a 91-79 meet to fall to 6-3 on the year. Leading the way against the Bears were Nicole Van Avery, who won the 50 freestyle (26.75); Gabrielle Alcino, who won the 100 butterfly (1:05.71) and the 100 backstroke (1:05.78); Rachel Lu, who won the 500 free (5:41.79); and the 200 medley relay team of Van Avery, Nikita Nadkami, Angela Pugliaro and Ashley Chibbaro, who won in 2:02.84.

Many of those same names will be looking to make waves at the upcoming GMC meet, where the team championships are believed to be battles for second place.

With St. Joseph's boys and Bishop Ahr's girls expected to claim the team titles in dominant fashion, the rest of the competition appears to be fairly wide open, with a number of teams likely to be in the mix.

Both East Brunswick's boys and girls teams are expected to be competitive, as will the South Brunswick teams. South Brunswick's boys already have a big dual meet win over East Brunswick boys (95.5-75.5) , making them the likely favorite to finish second behind the 25-time defending champion Falcons.

East Brunswick entered the season ranked second in the GMC, only to have the South Brunswick boys take that spot with their early season win.