East swimmers set school record

By Matt Metcalf
Posted 3/22/17

Josh Hernandez, Theo Khvang, James Zhu and Evan Park will all be graduating from Cranston East this year. After that, the quartet of seniors will go their separate ways, but they'll always be linked together in the East

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East swimmers set school record

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Josh Hernandez, Theo Khvang, James Zhu and Evan Park will all be graduating from Cranston East this year.

After that, the quartet of seniors will go their separate ways, but they’ll always be linked together in the East athletics record book moving forward.

At the Rhode Island Interscholastic League State Swimming Championships on Feb. 25 at Brown University, Hernandez, Khvang, Zhu and Park made school history in their last race together, finishing the 400-yard freestyle relay in a time of 3:28.72, breaking an 18-year-old school record.

The performance secured the relay team a spot on the podium, earning the seniors medals with a sixth-place effort.

“It felt really good as a team,” Park said of breaking the record. “They’re like my family, so it felt good to get the record after all the hard work we put in. Now we’re in the books for the whole school.”

The four swimmers were able to come together and accomplish something great, despite having dissimilar swimming backgrounds.

Park, for instance, was the only one of the four who possessed a heavy swimming background, as he grew up swimming at the Cranston YMCA.

“He’s the only one that came to me with a real swimming background,” East coach Bob Bouchard said of Park. “He came to me as a freestyler, and he could do a little butterfly.

Khvang, who is Cambodian, didn’t swim until he entered middle school.

But, once he caught on, he emerged as a natural.

“I first started swimming when I came to Park View in seventh grade and had Mr. Bouchard as a gym teacher,” Khvang said. “I wasn’t sure about swimming, but the first thing Bouchard saw was my freestyle and then I was under his radar.”

Zhu enrolled at Cranston East as a junior after moving to the United States from China.

Although Zhu struggled with the English language initially, he quickly became just another team member.

“Our newest addition was James, he’s only been here for two years,” Hernandez said. “We just welcomed him in. This team was like a big family, overall. It was like a brotherhood. We shared a lot of bonds, a lot of similarities. We hung out together and pushed each other in practice. All the hard work paid off.”

Zhu had some swim experience in China thanks to his mother, so he meshed well with the team as a junior, and he became a crucial component to the team by this season.

“When I was a little kid,” Zhu said of when he started swimming. “My mom was a swim coach and she thinks I’m too lazy, so she wanted me to swim every day.”

Hernandez was another student-athlete who began swimming during his time at Park View Middle School.

Bouchard noticed Hernandez’s raw talent at that time, as well, and worked with him when he entered Cranston East.

All four swimmers took different avenues to get to where they are today, but they were able to come together, put the work in and achieve a common goal.

“It’s just awesome,” Hernandez said. “Looking back to where we started from, we never thought we’d break a record like this. I’m proud of the team. We were against all odds and were able to pull through.”

Only time will tell how long this group’s record will hold up.

But, there’s no question that Hernandez, Khvang, Zhu and Park will enjoy their time atop the record book as long as it lasts.

“I think it will hold up, hopefully, for a good amount of time,” Hernandez said. “These are some great guys and we did some really good work.”

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