Signed, sealed, delivered!
Hancock’s overtime pin in 220-pound state final caps off Gordon’s remarkable 50-year career
Cumberland High’s Reuben Hancock wins the state title at 220 pounds.
PROVIDENCE — It took an extra 52 seconds, but Cumberland wrestling coach Steve Gordon’s 50-year career ended the right way at Saturday’s RIIL State wrestling tournament at the PCTA.
Cumberland junior Reuben Hancock gave up a late reversal to Ponaganset’s Luke Cirkin to send the 220-pound state title bout to overtime. Late in the extra session, Hancock threw the Chieftain to his back and secured the state title with a pin at 6:52 in Gordon’s final state tournament match.
“This feels amazing,” said Hancock, who was a jayvee state champion last season. “This is such a big jump from being jayvee my first two years. I won freshmen states and jayvee states last year, but nothing compares to this. The bracket was so much bigger, I had to work so much harder, it’s just an incredible feeling.”
“He has a lot of heart,” Gordon said. “He’s put in a lot of hard work to get here. It’s very hard to do to go from freshman, to jayvee to never starting varsity and then – bang – here he is.”
Hancock’s victory not only provided the Clippers with a feel-good story, it also proved to be important in the team standings. Cumberland didn’t have the depth to retain its state title as Ponaganset moved up from second last year to win its first state title with 196 points thanks to five finalists and three champions. Hendricken crowned three champions to finish second with 180 points.
The Clippers entered Hancock’s match needing a bonus-point victory to catapult ahead of Coventry for third place and Hancock’s pin gave them six team points to secure third place by two points over the Oakers, 137135.
“I was very pleased with this tournament,” Gordon said. “I didn’t have any illusions to the fact that we were going to win this thing because we only had seven scorers here. Those guys did what we thought they would do. Most of them wrestled to their seeds and we had a good tournament. This tournament went exactly the way we thought it would go. We wanted to be top-5 and we were third.”
Gordon will bring six Clippers to New Englands next week, but Saturday was the final time he walked out of the Providence Career & Technical Academy for a state tournament. Gordon coached the Clippers to five state titles in his 50-year career, including four in the last 14 seasons, and he was content as he left the building with his wife, Judy, his two daughters and his two granddaughters.
“I’m happy with the way I’ve done it,” Gordon said. “I think it’s important to know when it’s your time to go and not hang around and be a hanger-oner. I’ve done my thing and we won it last year and we were third this year. We’re still young and tough. [Coach Colin Smith] is getting a healthy program. I couldn’t be happier. I have no regrets.
“The biggest thing is, I lived my dream. I have a great family, I’m the wrestling coach in the town I live in - I couldn’t be happier.”
Hancock, who pinned his way to the state final, failed to record a takedown in the opening period against Cirka and the score was tied at two after two periods after the pair exchanged reversals.
Hancock grabbed a 5-3 lead late in the third with a takedown, but the underdog Chieftain quickly secured a reversal to send the match into overtime.
That’s when Hancock, who is the starting catcher on the baseball team, picked up his fourth fall of the tour- nament to give the Clippers a state champion.
“My thought going into overtime was ‘I can not get taken down right now,’” Hancock said. “I was obviously going to wrestle offensive, but I needed to have that defensive side ready in case he had taken a shot. The pin just put the cherry on top of the ice cream for me. It made the win so much better.”
Hancock was the fourth Cumberland wrestle to compete in the finals. The other three couldn’t reverse dual-meet defeats they suffered to talented Division I wrestlers.
Sophomore Brady Gillis, who dominated his first three points, couldn’t solve undefeated Coventry sophomore Joziah Fry in the 106-pound final. Fry recorded the only takedown of the first period and slowly opened up a lead that turned into a 16-2 victory for his first state title.
Two bouts later, Hendricken’s Nate Williams used his dominant top wrestling to control sophomore Dom Passanante for the second time in two weeks. Williams secured a 13-0 victory in the 120-pound final.
“They were up against better kids in those matches,” Gordon said of his other finalists. “[Williams] is tough and he’s skilled and he’s been around for a long time. My guy’s young and he’ll get better. Being in the finals is a big step for him. With Gillis, this was his first year on varsity and he got to the final.”
Junior Kaream Sangare moved up a step on the podium with a second-place finish at 195 pounds. Ponaganset’s Tyler Riggs punctuated the Chieftains’ two-day performance with an 8-0 victory in the final.
Two other Clippers will return to Providence Friday night for New Englands, as sophomore Colby Reilly (113 pounds) and junior Jaylen Reynolds (285 pounds) bounced back from semifinal defeats to win twice in the consolation bracket to finish third.
Reilly defeated Coventry’s Jacob Remolina, 11-1, in the consolation final and Reynolds posted a 4-1 victory in his third-place match to return to New Englands.
Freshman Aidan Faria came up a win short of advancing. After a quarterfinal defeat, the sophomore won three 126-pound consolation bouts before losing to returning state champion Kyle Merritt to finish fourth.
“Faria had a good tournament,” Gordon said. “He wrestled well and placing fourth as a freshman in a very loaded weight class is very good. He wrestled well.”