CHAPEL HILL - One of the most-quoted maxims in competition states that a team should never look past an opponent. But with post-season prospects like those on the horizon for East Chapel Hill's varsity swimmers, it's hard not to.

The Wildcats began their quest for another state title on Tuesday with a landslide victory against Cary Academy at Homestead Aquatics Center. East Chapel Hill's boys scored 206 points to the Chargers' 77, while the girls prevailed by a margin of 186-95.

East sophomore Koya Osada won both the 200-meter freestyle and the 100-meter backstroke, while Jeremiah O'Donell doubled up on the butterfly and breaststroke at the 100-meter distances. On the girls' side, junior Sophie Gan placed first in the 200-meter freestyle as well as the 100-meter butterfly.

Unsurprisingly, second-year coach Lyn Smith is excited about her team's chances of making another statement at the 4A level before the school's planned reassignment to the 3A classification in 2013. On Tuesday, the Wildcats will test themselves against future 3A conference rival Chapel Hill High, another perennially competitive team.

"My intentions are that we take it further at states than we did last year," she said. "It was a close regional meet for us last year, and I don't want it to be that close this year."

She has no reason to expect that it will be, either. Despite losing a number of Division I prospects to graduation, the Wildcats remain well-stocked with talent and numbers.

"The thing about swimming is that you have to have a broad range to score the points instead of having one or two really good swimmers," she said. "I think that's why we do so well."

Their trove of young athletes, specifically, is what makes the Wildcats such a promising team. Current sophomore Osada placed in the top three in two events his freshman year.

"Koya's an awesome swimmer," Smith said. "He's pretty much our big gun. But like I said, we have so many other kids that are going to make up the points that we lost last year."

As a parent of East swimmers, Smith was able to use her familiarity with the program of longtime coach Becky Campbell to streamline the coaching transition and maintain East's enthusiastic and tight-knit swimming culture. The 93-member Wildcat team has always called its coach by her first name.

"I was afraid that the things they were used to would go away if somebody who didn't know the program came in and took it over," Smith said. "I don't think we changed things much since Becky was here, as far as the things we do."

But Abby Isaacs, a senior who has swum under both coaches, appreciates both the continuation of Campbell's legacy and the excitement Smith herself brings to the table.

"Her coaching style is a lot different from Becky's," she said. "She's a lot more enthusiastic and ready to get everyone in the water."

Junior Will Krakow agrees. He never competed for Campbell, but remembers his older sister Katie's time on the team.

"I didn't swim with Becky, but I know she was really intense," he said. "Lyn is fun, but we still work hard in practice."

Smith said her main point of emphasis in training this season has been to push her athletes' volume early on to condition them for late-season competition.

"If we can keep everyone's motivation and work ethic up, and keep that team camaraderie, this team can't do anything but great things," she said. "That's what I'm looking forward to."

Elsewhere last week, Cedar Ridge finished in the middle of a Carolina-12 tri-meet Wednesday at the Triangle Sportsplex. N.C. Science finished first, with its boys getting 107 points and its girls 85; the Cedar Ridge girls were second with 63 and the boys had 47 points. Voyager Academy was third in both the boys' (13 points) and girls' (8) competitions.

Chapel Hill opened its season Thursday night at the Triangle Aquatics Center, where high winds knocked out power midway through the truncated meet.