DURHAM, N.H. — The Hanover High girls swimming and diving team defended its NHIAA Division II state title with a dominating performance on Friday evening at the Swasey Pool on the campus of the University of New Hampshire.

The Bears opened the night with a victory in the 200-yard medley relay and piled up points all night long for a total of 241.5, well ahead of second place Oyster River (133). Hanover senior Ella Tullar won her second straight one-meter diving competition to highlight the night.

The Bears have won six of the last eight D-II state crowns and have never finished worse than second during that stretch.

“They really dominated that meet, and I am super proud of them,” Hanover head coach Trent Staats said.

The Hanover boys finished second, just 10 points behind state champion Souhegan, 207-197. The win was the Sabers’ first since 2013; meanwhile, the Bears posted their third straight runner-up result since claiming team honors in 2022.

Stevens High School, with just four girls, finished eighth among 23 teams on the strength of senior Sara Gaspard’s two individual events and the freestyle relays. Also with a strong meet was Lebanon freshman Hailey Belardo, who was third in the 100-yard breaststroke and fourth in the 200 individual medley. Mascoma’s Andrew Prince was ninth in the 50 free and tenth in the 100 free.

Staats said the Hanover teams swam better in many events than what the coaches expected and finished better than many of their pre-race seedings.

“The girls scored many more points than their seedings, and the boys definitely swam up,” Staats said, noting they were just a fifth-place finish away from winning the meet. “We have young kids like (freshman) Alex (Chen) and can build on that for next year.”

Though neither Hanover team had an individual state champion beyond Tullar’s diving victory, consistent top-five finishes throughout the meet put the Bears in a position to win a title. The girls nearly swept the relays with two firsts and a second.

For the girls to win a championship without a single state swimming champion is a rarity, Staats said.

“My takeaway is that it was a team victory. You can’t do that without a big collection of contributors,” Staats said. “It was not on the backs of one or two athletes. It was everybody coming together to score points.”

Teams and individuals are seeded in each event based on their previous best times. Seedings are usually accurate predictors of the race outcomes, but not always.

In both the girls 200 and 400 freestyle relays Hanover beat higher seeds.

“I think the 400 relay was a big surprise for us,” said Elizabeth Staats, joined poolside at the conclusion of the meet by fellow seniors and relay team members Claire Uiterwyk and Iris Freeman. (Junior Sofia Ye filled out the quartet). “We were seeded second and came in first. We were very excited about that.”

The 200 relay team of Ruby Lintner, Uiterwyk, Freeman and Joy Cheng was seeded fifth but finished second, just fractions of a second from a win.

It was a similar scenario with the boys 400 freestyle relay, the final race of the night. Though they could not catch Souhegan for the state title with a win, the relay team of Theo Cook, Gabe Clerkin, Alex Chen and Miles Vogt felt it had something to prove.

“A half-hour before the race we were hyping each other up,” said Vogt, a junior.

Seeded second behind Souhegan, the Bears took a lead off the blocks and widened it with each leg, winning in a time of 3:31.

“This race encapsulates the ethics the team has,” Cook, a senior, said after the meet. “Every day we are in the water, practicing, getting our technique right and just putting ourselves in a position like this, when we can show New Hampshire what we can do.”

Clerkin said he knocked a second off his personal best for a 100 free in the relay. “I felt really good and am happy with how our team did,” he said.

Gaspard capped her four-year swimming career with a second place in the 50-freestyle and third in the butterfly. Equally satisfying for Gaspard and the Cardinals were their sixth-place finishes in the 200 and 400 freestyle relays.

“It has been awesome,” said Gaspard, who has made the state meet all four years, with this year providing her best results. “I’m very happy with today. I got a PR in the fly, and this is the first time we have had relay teams.”

Aubree Herzog, also a senior, said the relay results were a big accomplishment for Stevens. Seeded seventh in the 200-yard relay, Gaspard, Herzog, Emilee Hall and Rae Brothers trimmed more than two seconds off their best time to take sixth, the final podium spot in each race.

“It is great that we placed, and it was exciting to cheer Sara on,” Herzog said.

Hall, who raced in the 50 free, and Brothers said they would work on recruiting swimmers for next year in hopes of fielding another relay team.

Elizabeth Staats said a state championship is always the goal and winning back-to-back is exciting for Hanover, but the Bears like to look at their accomplishments over the entire season.

“The season is more than the state meet and we had a lot of fast swimmers in the regular-season meets, and we are very proud of that,” she said.

“It has been a great season,” added Uiterwyk.

Other results for Hanover: Girls — Elizabeth Staats (4th, 200 free, 3rd 100 free); Iris Freeman (2nd, 200 and 500 free); Sofia Ye (2nd , 200IM and 100 breaststroke); Ruby Lintner (fifth, 100 backstroke); Claire Uiterwyk (4th, 50 free); Adelaide Cesanek (5th, 200 free, 5th 100 fly); Staats, Ye, Cesanek Joy Cheng (1st, 200 yard medley relay).

Boys — Alex Chen (3rd, 200 free); Gabe Clerkin (3rd, 200IM, 2nd, 100 breaststroke); Miles Vogt (6th, 100 free, 4th 100 breaststroke); Theo Cook (4th, 200IM; 5th, 100 breaststroke); David Viazmenski (4th, 100 breaststroke); Gael Popescu (6th, 100 breaststroke); Viazmenski, Landes Hough, Chen, Aiden Caulfield (4th, 200 free relay); Vogt, Cook, Viazmenski, Clerkin (2nd, 200 medley relay).

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Girls team scores: Hanover 241.5, Oyster River 133, St. Thomas 129, Bow 120, Derryfield 111, Hollis/Brookline 103, Souhegan 71, Stevens 66, Milford 54.5, Kearsarge 36, Lebanon (14th, 23).

Boys team scores: Souhegan 207, Hanover 197, Oyster River 152, St. Thomas 125, Coe-Brown 114, Hollis/Brookline 88, Derryfield 85, Milford 46, Newmarket 36, Pelham 35, Mascoma (15th, 7).