By ALEX SPONSELLER Cranston East swim coach Bob Bouchard was recently named the 2019-20 Northeast Section Boys Swimming & Diving Coach of the Year by the NFHS Coaches Association Advisory Committee.

This award comes after Bouchard being named the Rhode Island Interscholastic League Coach of the Year, which led to his nomination on the regional scale which included RI, Massachusetts, Vermont, Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire and New York.

The NFHS stated that nominees were selected based on lifetime community involvement, school involvement and philosophy of coaching.

“It was a surprise. I also won the RIIL Coach of the Year award and I was happy with that. So I was pretty happy with that. It feels good, it makes you kind of look back at some of your accomplishments, I’ve heard from a few of my former swimmers, it’s been good,” said Bouchard.

The Bolts have had one of the most successful and consistent programs on both the boys and girls side over the past decade. The boys have won five Division II championships since 2010, while the girls won the Division III title in 2018-19.

Stability and high expectations has been the key to building a strong program according to Bouchard.

“I think any program that has existed and has been successful is consistency. The kids know what they’re getting involved in, they know that they are not coming into a ‘come as you please’ program. They have to work hard, but they know they’ll be competitive,” said Bouchard. “All kids want to be part of a successful program but they know it’s not going to be easy. I think it’s a fallacy to say that kids don’t want discipline. I think it’s the opposite. They want structure, they want to be pushed, and you just need to figure out how to do that.”

2021 proved to be no different for the East swim clubs, as each team qualified for the playoffs and the boys took a quarterfinal round victory.

The boys won the quarterfinals 61-33. Sophomore Tim Dietrich had his personal best times in the 200 and 500 freestyle events while freshman Charlie Maguire won the breaststroke. The Bolts fell to Westerly in the semis 52-42.

East had an uphill battle this season after losing its two top athletes in Aidan Carpenter and Alfred Su from last season. Bouchard was proud of his team’s ability to rebound.

“They came up huge from day 1. Losing the other guys, we needed them to step up. When looking at the team before the season and how we ended up, we turned out to be a pretty good team and it’s because of those kids. That was really good,” Bouchard said.

The girls fell to North Providence 49-44 in the quarters.

Lily Maguire won both the 200 IM and the 100 breaststroke. The Lady Bolts finished with a 4-4 record.

“We had a small group with COVID and everything going on. We only had eight girls and a couple of them were new. Next year, we are hoping to have a few new girls join the program. We are losing Aislinn Baxter, but we will have the majority of the girls back which is great,” said Bouchard.