Cumberland High football coach Rick Reetz found himself in an enviable position last week. His Clippers, 3-4 during the regular season, were scheduled to meet a favored West Warwick (5-2) in the Division II playoff quarterfinals. Nobody gave Cumberland much of a chance to win.
On top of that, much attention was given to a 5-2 Woonsocket team that couldn’t get into the playoffs because of a complicated tiebreaker ruling.
“It was all over the street,” Reetz said when asked if the Woonsocket controversy impacted his team in any way. “Everywhere we went up north, we heard about how Woonsocket couldn’t get in the playoffs with a 5-2 record and we were in with a 3-4 record. Our coaching staff went to dinner at a local restaurant one night and somebody sent a message out from the kitchen that Woonsocket belonged in the playoffs instead of us.”
Reetz went into Saturday afternoon’s game against West Warwick feeling good about his team’s chances.
“I think we’re in the stronger half of the division,” the coach said. The records would seem to back up his suggestion. South Kingstown went 7-0 to win the II-B regular season title and Cranston East finished second at 6-2. Toll Gate took third place with a 4-3 mark and Cumberland came in fourth at 3-4, beating Lincoln in its final game to earn a playoff berth.
The Clippers then went out and beat Division II-A top seed West Warwick 14-6 on Saturday.
“A 3-4 record may not look good on the outside,” Reetz said, “but our team playe d good football this season. We had a lot of injuries and depth remains a problem for us. I do think our win over West Warwick can be considered a huge upset. But we played a good game and we were fortunate to have David Elkas healthy enough to play both offense and defense.”
Elkas, a 6-foot-1, 180-pound junior halfback, rushed for 75 hard yards on 24 carries, played strong on defense, and even contributed
 a game-changing 50-yard punt when Cumberland’s regular punter, Josh Chevalier, went out with an injury.
“David is a tremendous athlete, a great leader on and off the field for us,” Reetz said. “When he is healthy enough to play offense and defense, we are a much better football team.”
Quarterback Dan Canavan also came up big for the Clippers, throwing a 21-yard touchdown pass to Joe Vecchio In the first quarter.
“It was a brutal day for football,” Reetz admitted, speaking of the wind and rain that blew over West Warwick’s gridiron. Cumberland’s defense created four turnovers while the Clippers turned the ball over only once, which explains how they could win even though the Wizards outgained them in total offense, 199-126.
“It was a very rough day for throwing the football,” Reetz pointed out. “But we got a couple of big plays out of our passing game from Canavan and Vecchio. Prior to our second touchdown, Danny made a great throw to Vecchio on a comeback route on fourth-and-12.”
Vecchio  and Canavan also hooked up on a two-point conversion pass that gave the Clippers an 8-point lead following Elkas’ 10-yard scoring run.
Reetz spent Sunday evening scouting his next opponent. Cranston East, which beat the Clippers 14-0 earlier this month, hosted Tolman last night at Cranston Stadium. Cumberland gets the winner when the playoffs resume on Dec. 2.
“I think we’ll be a dangerous underdog in our next playoff game,” Reetz said. “We have a young team with only three seniors starting. We lost a couple of close games early in the season. When you have a lot of first-year varsity players, it takes time for them to learn what it takes to win at this level. The good news for us is we have already played both Cranston East and Tolman (Injury Fund scrimmage) this season. I think it’s a significant advantage for the team that loses the first time around because we know what we need to do to beat them.”
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Tolman and Cranston East were rained out of their scheduled Saturday night playoff game, forcing the two schools to schedule a rare Sunday night football game at the rather late kickoff time of 8:15 p.m. Two state championship freshman and sophomore games were scheduled for noon and 2 p.m. at Cranston Stadium, necessitating the a kickoff time some conscientious educators might have a problem with.
“I wasn’t too happy about it,” Tolman athletic director John Scanlon said. “But both coaches agreed to it. Their teams were ready to play. They wanted to get the game played as soon as possible instead of waiting until Monday and playing at 6 p.m.”
Sunday night’s game would end near 11 p.m., leaving the student-athletes a short night’s sleep before heading to school early this morning.
“I remember when I first coached basketball, all the games started at 8 p.m,” said Scanlon, who coached basketball for many years at Shea High. “We would play an 8 p.m. game in Newport against Rogers High, then drive home. Was that a good idea? Not really. Then the league pushed the starting times ahead to 7 p.m. Occasionally, we still play an 8 p.m. game on a Friday night but there’s no school the next day.”
Cranston East could have avoided the scheduling snafu by agreeing to play Tolman on Friday night.
“They never wanted to play on Friday,” Scanlon said. “I got a call from them on Thursday after they saw the weather forecast. We knew there was a good possibility Saturday’s game would be rained out and we would have to play on Sunday.”
Sunday Night Football at the high school level might be something the Principals’ Committee should check into at their next confab.