Sweet Redemption
After getting throttled in the regular-season matchup, Logan Coles and the Woonsocket High football team turned the tables on Westerly when it mattered the most en route to winning the 2018 Division II Super Bowl
WOONSOCKET — Simply put, Logan Coles expects to win every time he puts on a maroon-and-white Woonsocket High uniform.
Whether it’s in the throwing circle where he has earned the reputation as one of the top weight and hammer throwers in the nation, or on the football field where he’s a two-time Division II Super Bowl champion, Coles usually finds a way to walk off the field with the sweet taste of victory in his mouth.
That’s what makes the soon-to-be Woonsocket senior’s favorite game so memorable.
The Villa Novans won the 2018 Division II Super Bowl with a dominating win over East Greenwich, but that’s not the game that sticks out for Coles. It was the penultimate playoff victory – a 22-21 triumph over a Westerly team that embarrassed the Novans by 40 points earlier that same season down at the Bulldogs’
Algieri Field.
“They beat the breaks off us in the second week of the season and that was our only loss up until that point of the season,”
Coles said one day last week.
“Because they beat us so early in the season, we had time to get better, but going into the [playoff game vs. Westerly], not a lot of us were very confident.
“I just think midway through the first quarter, we realized they weren’t as good as we thought and we could beat them.”
“We knew when we lost the first game, we understood what we did wrong,” Woonsocket coach Charlie Bibeault said. “We didn’t look at it as a 62-12 loss. We knew if we corrected two or three things, we could win. The kids were really excited to play. The one thing our team is built on is love and brotherhood. We know we can trust the guy right next to you. The kids were so mature they knew we were always in the game.”
Woonsocket knew it needed to commit fewer penalties and hold on to the football if it was going to have a chance to beat the No. 2 Bulldogs at East Greenwich High. The biggest challenge was on the defensive side of the ball where the big Novans were pushed all over the field in the first meeting. Then freshman Tarik Robinson-O’Hagan was pushed into a starting role and the Novans used Burrillville’s approach to stopping Westerly’s running attack.
“It was an easy scheme to stop, we just had to hit harder than them,” O’Hagan said.
“I was confident and I knew we could beat them if we battled them. If we didn’t want to hit, we were going to lose. We went there to battle and we took it from them. For me, going into a game like that was fun. It really got your adrenaline pumping.”
The Novans stacked the line of scrimmage, but it didn’t matter for most of the first half because the Bulldogs grabbed a 21-2 advantage. Peter Fusaro scored a 55-yard touchdown on just the second play of the game and Jalen Valentin extended the lead to 14-0 with a 35-yard scamper. After a safety, Tristan Turano scored a touchdown to make it a 21-2 lead.
Just when it seemed the Novans were going to get blown out, All-State running back Emmanuel Gomes scored a touchdown just before halftime.
“We get the safety and then we were like, ‘Wow we could stop them,’” Bibeault said. “We then punched in that touchdown right before the half. At halftime that was the most confident I’ve ever seen the kids. I didn’t say anything to them at halftime because I could see it in their eyes, they knew they were going to win the game.”
Just as the New England Patriots have done to numerous opponents over the last two decades, the Novans bookended halftime with touchdowns to make it a five-point game. Quarterback Geraldi Paniagua hit Hezekiah Adeyeye for a 45-yard reception to bring the ball to the Westerly 4. Gomes scored his second touchdown three plays later.
The Novans held the Bulldogs to just 37 rushing yards in the second half, which set the stage for Gomes to score his third touchdown of the afternoon to give the Novans their first lead of the afternoon.
Coles, O’Hagan, Corey Brown and the rest of the Novan defense made the lead stand up by shutting out the Bulldogs for the entire half.
“Since Logan has been a freshman, his contributions to the team have been insane,” Bibeault said. “He could be our MVP every year for his leadership, his ability, and his brain. Over the last two years everyone knows what we were trying to do, and you need someone like Logan to create holes by blocking. He created holes for Emmanuel in 2018 and then he and Tarik were our running game last season.”
Coles, who was the 2019 Division II Super Bowl MVP and the 2020 New England weight throw champion, rarely goes into a contest as an underdog. On a blustery November 2018 afternoon, he was part of a football unit that was perceived as a significant underdog. The resiliency the Novans showed that day will stick with Coles no matter where his considerable talents take him in sports.
“That game stands out for me because winning it seemed so impossible to do at the time,” Coles said. “You go from 62-12 before that to what happened. I know they felt like they were going to beat us again and some of our team felt like that, too. The year before that we were something like 2-9 in Division I, so it was good to see the kids who were seniors my freshmen year come back and see us win. That was the best feeling.”