Townies place 15th in state wrestling championships

Hellman paces EPHS grapplers with fifth-place result

Photos by Rich Dionne
Posted 2/27/19

PROVIDENCE — Senior Ryan Hellman was the lone East Providence High School wrestler to place at the 2019 Rhode Island Interscholastic League State Championship Meet held over two days, February 22 …

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Townies place 15th in state wrestling championships

Hellman paces EPHS grapplers with fifth-place result

Posted

PROVIDENCE — Senior Ryan Hellman was the lone East Providence High School wrestler to place at the 2019 Rhode Island Interscholastic League State Championship Meet held over two days, February 22 and 23, at the Providence Career and Technical Academy Field House, finishing fifth in the 152-pound weight class.

Hellman went 3-2 in the competition, accounting for 13 of the Townies’ 45 points as EPHS placed 15th in the team standings. Bishop Hendricken had 10 of its wrestlers earn top three finishes en route to winning its 12th state title with 221 points. Ponaganset was second with 190. Chariho and Cumberland share third, each scoring 176.5 points.

Hellman received a bye into the second round of the 152 event. He then pinned Chris Cardolino of Exeter-West Greenwich 38 seconds into their bout. Hellman followed up with an 8-3 decision of Cranston East’s Nick Rutherford before losing to Aidan Bennett of Mt. Hope in the championship round semifinals. Bennett would eventually fall to Chariho’s Dominic Bonnano, 2-1, for the 152 state title.

Hellman lost his first match in the consolation bracket, 5-3 in overtime to Hendricken’s Nate Reid, and earned fifth place in the overall 152 bracket with a victory over Cumberland’s Matthew Maguire. Reid defeated Rutherford, by pin at 4:43 of the third period in the third-place match.

Constantino Capobianco, who went 3-2, was next on the Townies in scoring with five points at states in the 138-pound class.

Capobianco opened with consecutive victories by pin, at 42 second of the first period over Ponaganset’s Theo Mihalides and at 3:02 of the second over Tolman/Shea’s Kyle Ferrara. In the championship quarterfinals, though, Capobianco suffered a similar fate, losing to eventual 138 state runner-up Kyle Merritt of Chariho by pin at 3:18 of the second. Merritt fell to Hendricken’s Nick Fine, 6-5, in the title match.

Capobianco, meanwhile, defeated Smithfield’s D.J. Lombardo by a 12-9 decision in the consolation round before being eliminated from the competition by Cranston East’s Tyrell Newmann on points, 5-3. Newmann later lost to Scituate’s Michael Reynolds in the 138 third-place match.

Emmanuel Santiago (195 pounds), Ismael Frias (145), Jason Santiago (132), Jonas Gomez (120) and Kianu Duarte (220) each reached the championship bracket quarterfinals in their respective classes, but lost wrestling back in the consolation round.

Of note, Emmanuel Santiago, Gomez and Frias lost their quarters to the eventual state champs in their classes. Santiago fell to Ponaganset’s Tyler Biggs, by pin at 44 seconds of the first, while Gomez similarly lost to Hendricken’s Andrew Fallon by pin 46 seconds into their bout. Frias fell to Coventry’s Sean Caltigirone by pin at 30 seconds of the first.

East Providence’s other scorers included Michael Foster who won a pair of matches for the Townies and earned four points total in the 113 bracket. At 170, Jeff Clark won a championship round bout and three consolation matches to finished with a 4-2 record and earn three points. Efren Garcia scored a point with a win at 126. Sean Sullivan, at 106, and Chris Hess, at 182, competed but did not score.

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