Wellesley’s girls swimming and diving program found themselves in an unfamiliar spot at one point Sunday, they were still able to build upon their historic dynasty. Senior Anna McGrew won both the 50 (23.83 seconds) and the 100-yard (51.90) freestyle events, as Wellesley captured its sixth straight South sectional girls swimming and diving crown at Boston University.

“We train so much out-of-season, out-of competition,” said McGrew. “It’s really just a matter of (building) a mindset for the competition and for the meets. There’s a lot of pressure, there are a lot of nerves floating around. The main thing that I try to focus on is just trying to have fun.”

McGrew also anchored Wellesley to a win in the 200-yard freestyle relay (1:39.74), as well as a second-place finish in the 400 freestyle relay (3:42.33). Senior Elena Dudkina also paced Wellesley with a victory in the 100 backstroke (59.17 seconds) and a second place finish in the 200 IM (2:14.09).

Wellesley placed in the top-five in 10 out of 12 events.

Right from the get-go, it was clear that the meet was going to be dominated by the Bay State Conference, with two participants quickly separating from the pack. Throughout the course of the evening, Wellesley jockeyed for position atop the standings with rival Needham, a trend that held true as the hours progressed. With two events still to be scored, the Raiders trailed their counterparts by 13 points as a group.

Then, the momentum completely swung thanks to a fantastic performance by Lucy Savarese in the diving competition. The senior registered a score of 432.35 points, helping Wellesley assume a 21-point lead in the school rankings with just the 400-freestyle relay remaining. While Needham’s team of Julia Shulman, Chloe Wukitch, Lucy Mackey and Isabella Bobocea won the race with a time of 3:37.32, Wellesley’s squad of Dudkina, McGrew, Tracey Peng and Sonja Tellander clocked in second (3:42.33), sealing the latest piece of hardware for the program in the process. By the time the dust settled and the final results were tallied, the Raiders had defeated the Rockets by just eight points for it all.

It was a closer call than usual, but like they have so often before, the Raiders were able to prevail.

“The biggest difference (from past years) is that we lost to Needham in a dual meet this year for the first time in a while,” said Wellesley coach Doug Curtin. “We came in second at our Bay State Conference meet. We were kind of down and really had to rally around this meet, see if we could get back to being on top. We did it, which was awesome.”

Wellesley now turns its attention to the state final next week, where it will look to cap another impeccable campaign.

“Each year is different,” Curtin said. “This year was the closest it has been in a while. It is a testament to how Needham has fought. They’re a great team. I’d say the resilience of our team in the second half of the meet was really fun to watch. We held tight, and we fought really hard.”