The weekend was rife with compelling storylines: Bishop Hendricken won its 20th consecutive swimming state championship, North Kingstown's Olympian Liz Beisel and Prout's Laura Sogar took turns stealing the show from each other in the girls' meet on Saturday and a host of swimmers from East Greenwich, Narragansett, North Kingstown, South Kingstown and La Salle combined to break seven state records in the boys' event on Sunday.

Those stories provided one of the most exciting state meets in Rhode Island history and, essentially, thrust all other competitors to the back of the line. And while this year's boys' and girls' state meets will be remembered for streaks, championships and records, the swimmers from Cranston East and West will remember them for different reasons.

Neither boys' or girls' team from East or West won an individual or relay title. In fact only two swimmers, East's Lindsey Kanno and West's Jessica Murphy, scored top-eight finishes. The Falcons' girls notched the city's top finish (11th place) while the East girls claimed 12th. The roles were reversed on the boys' side, where East took 15th with 29 points and West placed 17th with 22 points. But that's not to say that the teams didn't find success on the state's biggest stage.

"We're happy with how they did," East coach Bob Bouchard said. "You look at where we finished and, year, we'd like to have been higher. But we're not here to beat Hendricken, not many teams are. What we want to see is if the kids are peaking and if they are getting something out of it. If the boys walked away not swimming well then it would have been a downer for the season, but they did a great job. They all worked hard, their times came down and they are happy. That's all you can ask for."

East freshman John Lovelace and senior Joe Granata scored the 'Bolts' only individual points in Sunday's boys' meet. Granata finished 15th in the 100 breaststroke with a time of one minutes, 10.42 seconds while Lovelace picked up one point for a 16th-place finish in the 500 freestyle (5:42.29). His time set a new Cranston East freshman records.

East's 200 medley relay team of Granata, Jeff Silva, Clement Caire and Jaquan Scripsack took 13th in 2:01.19 and the 'Bolts grabbed another 13th place finish in the 200 freestyle relay (Caire, Scripsack, Silva, Lovelace). Silva, Lovelace, Granata and Scripsack teamed up to finish 12th in the 400 freestyle relay.

"They swam well," Bouchard said. "Our first relay had a nice time, Granata swam his best time in the butterfly and Lovelace had good 500 time. But our breaststrokers were the highlight for us. Silva came down a couple seconds and did his best time at 1:13 and Granata came down almost four seconds to place 15th. It was nice to see him score points for the team."

Lindsey Kanno's seventh-place finish in the 100 breaststroke (1:14.17) led the East girls on Saturday. She also grabbed 11th in the 500 freestyle (5:41.33) while Valery Maya took 16th in the same event in 6:06.60. Sophie Kanno rounded out the team's individual scoring with an 11th-place showing in the 100 butterfly (1:07.58).

Lindsey, Sophie, Allegra Marra and Kristen Johnson took eighth (2:03.64) in the 200 medley relay while Sophie, Lindsey, Maya and Kristen Bachand took 11th in the 400 freestyle relay. Sophie, Johnson, Erica Bachand and Brianna Lindia rounded out the team's scoring with a 13th-place finish in the 200 freestyle relay.

"The Kanno sisters responded at the state meet," Bouchard said. "Sophie swam well in the butterfly and on all three relays. She did her personal best times in all those events and it was the same with Lindsey, who made New Englands in both of her events."

The West girls didn't have as much balance and used a handful of strong performances to edge East, 73-67, for the 11th overall spot at the meet. Senior Jessica Murphy played an instrumental role in the Falcons' success, taking sixth in the 50 freestyle (26.3), seventh in the 100 freestyle (57.58) and swimming on the 10th-place 200 medley relay team with Fay Laborio, Lauren Pannone and Laura Thompson. That quartet rejoined to take 10th in the 200 freestyle relay with a time of 1:54.88, cutting nearly seven seconds off its qualifying time.

Pannone took ninth in the 100 butterfly in 1:06.36 while Laborio grabbed 11th in the 100 backstroke (1:06.65) and placed 12th in the 500 freestyle (5:42.72).

West

"Overall this team has really excelled," West coach Jamie Gaulin-Ferretti said. "And they've actually gone beyond excelling; they've pushed their limits. They set their own goals and they accomplished them. I am extremely proud of every single one of them for that. Our expectations were to go out and accomplish our own individual and team goals during the season and we did that."

The West boys didn't have any individual scorers at Sunday's meet. Freshman Xavier Ferland grabbed the team's top finish when he placed 18th in the 100 breaststroke, junior Steven Accetta took 21st in the 100 butterfly, junior Rob Millerick finished 22nd in the 100 backstroke and Jacob Dinerman placed 24th in the 200 IM.

Millerick, Ferland, Dinerman and Sean Murtagh took 11th in the 200 medley relay with a time of 1:59.69 and joined together again to place 12th in the 200 freestyle relay in 1:45.13.

"It was up and down for us this year but their motivation and focus was still there and I'm extremely proud of the way that they ended up," Gaulin-Ferretti said. "They didn't come in first but they excelled there. They met all of the long-term goals that we had set and really did a nice job."

Both East and West will have different looks next year as the teams prepare to graduate some key senior contributors. East will lose Lindsey Kanno and Breanna Souza on the girls' side while the boys will lose Scripsack, Sunny Lei, Jeff Kong, Jordan Cabral and Rob Brothers.

"The girls are only losing two seniors and the rest are coming back," Bouchard said. "Now we just have to hope that we have some new people coming up. The boys are a pretty young group and we know that we have some freshmen coming in there. Hopefully we can get those new recruits."

West will be hit even harder by graduation, as the Falcons will graduate eight seniors between their two teams. The boys are set to graduate Murtagh, Andrew Favicchio and Brian Ahern and the girls will have to cope with the loss of Thompson, Pannone, Jesse DeSimone, Lexi Caruso and Kim Tamuleviz.

"There's going to be a little adjustment," Gaulin-Ferretti said. "Our seniors were the heart of this team and they helped push everyone else. I've had them for four years and it is going to be hard to fill their shoes. Seeing them go is going to be tough but I know there are people ready to step up in their place."