Shelton's Gillen Wins Second Straight Class LL Wrestling State Title

Shelton's Pat Gillen steamrolled his way to another wrestling state championship Saturday evening at Trumbull High School.

In what appeared to be a fate accompli, Gillen chalked up his second consecutive state title, needing 62 seconds to pin Staples' Chris Giunta in the finals of the 215-pound weight class.

Gillen, who improved to 41-0 this year, was on the mat for a combined 2:23 on Saturday. He pinned Greenwich's Joseph McGuire in 1:21 in the quarterfinals, then advanced to the finals when his semifinal opponent, Sean Marinan, of Xavier, defaulted.

Gillen appeared in the state final all four years at Shelton, also winning a title as a junior. He now advances to the state Open competition with the New Englands and nationals to follow after that.

"Four years of a lot of dedication and determination," Shelton coach Bill Maloney said. " He's done everything that you could have asked of him and more. He's extremely self-motivated and has just worked very hard to get where he is.

"All the  accolades and the things that he has accrued come in secondary to him. It's just that he continues to keep improving  and keep getting better." 

The Virginia-bound Gillen now has 192 career victories, putting the all-time state record of 200 wins well within his grasp.

"When you're at the top, you're always a target, so I'm going to just keep wrestling," Gillen said. "All my training and everything, I should be fine as long as I wrestle my match, got my head right and keep going with everything that
I'm doing."

Giunta, the No. 3 seed, reached the final with a 3-2 win in the semifinals over Trumbull's Bryan Barnash, the No. 2 seed who lost to Gillen in last year's final.

The big news Saturday was Xavier unseating Danbury as the 14-time Class LL team state champions. The Falcons won three gold medals to finish with 200 points (19 more than the runner-up Hatters).

There's that magic number again. Reaching 200 wins is a definite goal for Gillen, who never lost a Southern Connecticut Conference match in his four years at Shelton.

He is well aware of the math -- four wins in the Open, four wins in the New Englands, and he's there.

"If I win through New Englands again, I should have my 200th win, so that'll be good," Gillen said. "I've pretty much accomplished everything that I could have.

"I've kept training hard, working hard every day, not settling for any of the stuff I've accomplished. I keep looking to move forward because there's always that next level. I'll never be perfect."

Gillen's day Saturday lasted nearly 13 hours as his quarterfinal started at 9 a.m., but he has no problem closing out his matches with dispatch.

"I just got out take care of business," he said. "I don't want  anything to happen that doesn't need to happen."

Sounds like the perfect winning formula.

Two other Shelton wrestlers reached the semifinals, as Mark Failla and Edward took the bronze medal in the 103- and  140-pound divisions, respectively.

Sean Kellet finished fourth in the 119-pound class. The Gaels ended up eighth in the team standings with 103 points.