Bolts swim to division crown

By ALEX SPONSELLER
Posted 2/20/19

The Cranston East girls swimming team was unsure of how it would fare heading into this winter after graduating a large core of its team from last season. However, after finishing strong down the stretch with a 6-2 dual record, the Thunderbolts went on

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Bolts swim to division crown

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The Cranston East girls swimming team was unsure of how it would fare heading into this winter after graduating a large core of its team from last season.

However, after finishing strong down the stretch with a 6-2 dual record, the Thunderbolts went on to pull off the upset win at the Division 3 meet last week.

“I give them a lot of credit because early in the year and midway through the year we lost a lot of girls. We only had 12 girls this season, three of them were brand new. Going into these big meets, you need numbers. I give them a lot of credit because they stepped up and every one of them contributed. Everyone swam well,” said East coach Bob Bouchard. “They really worked hard and improved down the stretch.”

The medley relay team of Katie Idskou, Lily Maguire, Eleanor Trimm and Aislinn Baxter went on to win and break the school record which was set back in 2003. East’s team of Delia Maguire, Baxter, Eden Fisher and Trimm also won the 400 free relay.

Baxter went on to win the 50 free while Idskou won the 200 IM and the 100 free. Lily Maguire went on to get second in the 500 as well as the breaststroke. Sarah Murphy also dropped 20 seconds off of her time in the 500.

The relay team of Lily Maguire, Delia Maguire, Idskou and Julia Monsalve placed second in the 200 free relay, while Delia Maguire would take home third in the 50 free as well as third in the 100 free, and Trimm placed third in the butterfly.

Trimm would later take fourth in the 200 free while Fisher finished right behind in fifth. Baxter later took fourth in the backstroke while Fisher placed fifth and Monsalve also took fifth in the 100 free. Enid Corcoran took home fourth in the breaststroke while teammate Sidney Almeida placed fifth.

Although the Bolts were confident heading into the division meet, winning it was quite the surprise according to Bouchard.

“We were surprised when looking at the rest of the field. We were confident, but you always expect to have a couple good swims, you always expect to have a few bad ones but we really didn’t have any bad swims. We won the (medley) race and it really snowballed from there, it helped their confidence and really allowed them to all contribute throughout the day.”

The Bolts will now travel to the state championship this weekend, and hope to continue to roll and go toe to toe with some of the other top clubs in the state. Bouchard and company are targeting big performances in the relays, where they have thrived throughout the entire winter.

“We have the mindset that we want to go in there and win the relays. We broke the school record that was set in 2003 and we have two others that we’re close in. We’re going to try to go for those relays again more than anything, we have some girls that have elected to swim in three relays and just one individual event,” said Bouchard. “It’s good, we definitely have momentum going into the state meet.”

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