'Bolts cruise to first-ever Division II title

By ERIC RUEB
Posted 6/7/17

If you walked into Eddie's Diner for a late Sunday breakfast this spring, you may have seen a group of high school students enjoying a post-practice meal and never realized they were the best volleyball team in Division II. The Thunderbolts

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'Bolts cruise to first-ever Division II title

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If you walked into Eddie's Diner for a late Sunday breakfast this spring, you may have seen a group of high school students enjoying a post-practice meal and never realized they were the best volleyball team in Division II.

The Thunderbolts don't look the part. They look, well, average. You wouldn't think a group of kids whose sizes range from “tiptoes to reach the top shelf” to “stands next to the sign to prove he can ride the roller coaster” were members of a high school varsity team.

But they're more than just members of a team.

They're champions.

Cranston East closed a historic spring by doing what it does best: playing as a team, out-passing and outsmarting the opposition as the Bolts wrapped up an undefeated 2017 campaign with a 25-19, 25-23, 25-22 win over Classical to claim the Division II title, the first in the program's history, and making coach Meaghan McGonagle the second coach in RI history to have an undefeated girls and boys championship team in the same school year.

“We just wanted to win,” Cranston senior captain Theodore Khvang said. “Every match we wanted to win and after each match we won, we started seeing the potential and the title in front of our eyes.”

“Throughout the summer, our whole starting lineup worked over and over again. We put in too many hours of volleyball just with us, which is why we have very good chemistry,” CE setter and captain James Tang said. “When we saw how good we were, that's when we thought it. Everyone's intent is to win a championship, I guess ours just came true.”

“It was pretty early in the season,” McGonagle said, “that you could see how special that this team was.”

It was her first year at the helm, but McGonagle knew what she had. Members of the boys team served as managers for the girls team that went undefeated and won the school's first title in the fall. She knew they weren't tall and weren't going to scare anyone walking into a gym.

Conditioning was the priority from the first practice. The Bolts ran and ran and when they were done running, the ran some more. With a team loaded with seniors that spent most of their offseason playing volleyball together, the on-court skills and chemistry was already in place. McGonagle just made sure there wasn't a team in better shape because if CE wasn't going to outhit anyone, it was going to have to outlast them.

“Coach told us we don't have height so we don't get a lot of blocks. Our key is the pass,” Khvang said. “We're persistent and if a team is going to hit it down, we're going to get it up. We're never going to give up.”

It was evident in Saturday's final.

If you came for bump, set, spike, you were at the wrong location. There were some big hits here and there – and there's nothing more impressive than seeing players like Cranston East's David Thoeung or Andrew Khvang seemingly float trying to put balls down on the outside – but most of the points were won by the back row digging up Classical's swings and getting an offense that pounced on a Purple mistake.

Each set was a grind, but Cranston East never looked beaten or tired. Leads evaporated in each set and Classical briefly held one of its own in the second set, forcing McGonagle to call a timeout.

But every time it looked like Classical was ready to go on a run, someone in green would make a dig or roll a ball to an open spot or tool a hit off a block, forcing the Purple to chase. When it came time for the biggest points, Cranston East wasn't getting caught because it worked too hard to let someone catch them.

“We're working our butts off; in the offseason, in practice,” Thoeung said. “They were a really good team, I'll give them that. We just played our hearts out. Hearts over height.”

“We had to fight really hard. She makes us run in practice and that really helps us,” Tang said. “During those long rallies, she helped.”

McGonagle's year is one for the books. Before this school year an RIIL team had swept the boys and girls title four times: North Kingstown in 1991-92, NK again in 1997-98, East Providence in 2001-02 and Coventry in 2012-13. Of those four only EP, coached by Hall of Famer Luis Carvalho, had both teams go undefeated.

“It's special for her. She's a really good coach. Her game plan, the way she knows the game, she's really something special,” Tang said. “She's a special coach and it's really crazy how she got the boys and girls team to have undefeated seasons.”

“This type of season comes around once in a lifetime,” said McGonagle, who held a post-match ring ceremony, giving each member of the team a ring pop like she did in the fall with the girls.. “This year it was twice.”

The win also goes down in the program's books. Cranston East had been to three previous finals – all in Division II – and lost all three; a five-setter two Mount St. Charles in 2009, a sweep to the Mounties the next year and a sweep to North Smithfield two seasons ago.

Cranston East knew its history, which is why the team wasn't focused on titles even when it was rolling through D-II play this spring.

“We're not that cocky. We didn't know we were going to win a championship; we just wanted to focus on our matches,” Theo Khvang said. “We don't want to think too far ahead and get big heads or anything. We wanted to focus on each match whether it was a hard opponent or an easy opponent.”

It's also why it made winning feel that much better.

“It's just incredible,” Thoeung said. “I love ever moment and love every guy on this team.”

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