SANFORD — Some high school wrestlers will have a celebration planned for when they win a state finals match. Others are just overcome by emotion, and it shows when the final buzzer sounds and they realize they are a state champion.
When the scoreboard showed all zeros during the 120-pound title bout on Saturday evening and Noble freshman Josh Cote was on the right side of a 7-2 decision, there was no choreographed victory dance. Cote simply pumped his fists, got his hand raised and ran over to hug Noble coaches Kevin Gray and Peter Bronder in what will be a moment all three remember forever.
“It feels amazing … it really does. There’s not really other words (to describe) it,” said Cote moments after stepping off the podium at Sanford High School’s Veterans Memorial Gym.
“It’s great, I mean it’s great for him. He works really hard. He does a lot of offseason work,” added Gray, who knew the standout had the potential to grab gold as a freshman. “We knew he had the capability to do it. I think a lot of times it was telling him that he was that good and that he can really push through.”
Cote opened the Class A state meet with a pin of Morse’s Connor McNish in the quarterfinals. He would then square off with defending state runner-up Ricky Oberg of Skowhegan in the semifinals.
The Noble freshman scored a 4-2 victory to earn his spot in the 120-pound final against Nokomis standout Josh Brown.
Cote was happy to grab a 5-point win over Brown, but the freshman was hoping to get bonus points to help his team chase down eventual team champion Marshwood.
“The only thing that still kind of bothers me is that on the team side of things we still took second,” said Cote, who helped Noble cruise to a team title over Marshwood at last week’s regional meet. “Before the match coach Gray came up to me and said I need to either pin or get a major. In order to win against Marshwood by even one point, I needed to pin, Sam (Martel) needed to pin and Jon (Grenier) needed to win by a decision to tie or win by one.”
While the moment was a little bittersweet because the team title went to rival Marshwood, Cote was able to look back on his journey to the top of the podium — which included some setbacks along the way.
“Missing weight I feel like that was just a part of the process of learning how this sport works at the high school level, capitalizing on my mistakes and learning from them,” said Cote, who missed weight twice this season.
Cote knew that if he spent enough time in the wrestling room he would have a chance to capture gold as a freshman.
“I knew that if I really worked hard for it — I know this is going to sound like a major cliché, but if you put your mind to it you can get anything. You can get anything if you work hard enough for it,” Cote said.
The new 120-pound state champ is not going to celebrate for long as he is hoping to make reservations for Providence this weekend when he competes in the New England Qualifier at Nokomis Regional High School.
“I think that if I have another really good day like I had here, I could win All-States and I think I could place at New Englands … again, if I have a good day,” said Cote.
— Sports Editor Pat McDonald can be reached at [email protected] or at 282-1535 ext. 322. Follow the Journal Tribune Sports Department on Twitter @JournalTsports.