East Providence, Bay View, Barrington in RI State School Tourneys

Local area high schools are looking good in state schoolboy and schoolgirl championship tournaments. Leading the pack is Barrington High School’s boys & girls swim team with their second consecutive RIIL Swim State Championship, held at Brown University Saturday morning. The Eagles coached by John “Sandy” Gorham took first place with 383 points. That was 12 points more than powerhouse Hendricken. Hendricken took the Division title, but Barrington turned the Hawks back and won the RI State Championship with a convincing victory. The Barrington two-year run at the top is the first for a public school in quite a while. Barrington swimmers piled praise upon their coach, Sandy Gorham. “Coach Gorham has put together quite a program here. He is a great coach,” Eagle players were telling all who would listen. Gorham, of course is no stranger to East Providence. Gorham was an All-State swimmer and football player at East Providence and went on to become the Townies winningest head football coach ever and also coached swimming and softball at EPHS. In retirement, the Townie Hall of Famer has coached at Barrington High, bringing success to softball, football and swimming.

Bay View Academy in East Providence avenged an earlier loss to Division One champion Juanita Sanchez with an exciting 46-42 overtime win today over Sanchez. The Elite Eight win for Bay View catapulted the Bengals into the Final Four on March 11th at 12 noon at URI. Earlier, Bay View won a sweet 16 game over Mount St. Charles in a 50-35 game. Coach Dawan Robinson in his second year has Bay View playing among the state’s elite programs. Sanchez was the number 1 seed today with Bay View coming in at number 8. The Bengals avenged an earlier Division I loss to title winner Sanchez in a divisional semi-final clash with today’s overtime win. Bay View will play the Moses Brown – Rogers game in the final four tourney next weekend at URI.

The East Providence High boys basketball team will play Sunday, March 4 in an Elite Eight clash at Rhode Island College at 2 pm. The Townies will take on Smithfield High. East Providence made it to the Elite Eight by virtue of their upset win over higher seeded Classical High last week. East Providence made it to the Division I quarterfinals but lost out to LaSalle, which eventually upset Hendricken for the Division title. A win on Saturday could set up a LaSalle-EP rematch in the Final Four next weekend at URI. The Townies have been up and down all season with injuries and some inconsistent play. “I think we’re healthy and hopefully peaking at the right time,” said Townie coach Joe Andrade. “On any given night, if everything clicks, we can challenge for this thing.” Indeed, East Providence may be the team that no one looks forward to playing right now.