POWERPLANT BOXING SHOW

The Philo Powerplant Gym hosted its second annual amateur boxing show Saturday showcasing some of Philo High School's best.

Philo Athletic Boosters and the Police Athletic League of Zanesville-Muskingum County teamed up to make the event a success.

Eighteen bouts were on the card with PAL holding nine of them.  From the start, it looked like a long night for the hometown team as they dropped their first three matches in a row.  Finally, the string was broken and the team was able to win four matches overall.

Paul Ingle was the first to win grabbing his first ever against Cody Allen of Columbus in the 132-pound boy's senior division.  Ingle was able to work inside and outside for a strong, balanced attack.  Several times he was tested in "toe-to-toe" punch trades but was more than able to win them as well.  Ingle will attend Zanesville High School this year. 

Philo's own Casey Derry met southpaw Robert Fortune of Coshocton in the 145-pound boy's senior division.  The first round was scored about even and in the second, Derry began delivering great combinations inside to the body the Fortune had trouble stopping.  By the third round, Fortune was still taking everything Derry had but found out that Derry had even more left to give.  The decision went to the judges and a unanimous victory was awarded to Derry.

Justin Novaria met William Morris of Coshocton inside the ropes in a men's superheavy match.  Both had their moments in the first and the second rounds scoring good combinations and was able to back the other up.  As the third unfolded, Novaria showed his experience and dug deep to finish strong enough for the decision an his 29th overall vicotry for the Tri-Valley High School senior.

Larry Hampp of Duncan Falls made the feature bout of the show facing Dominique Falls of Columbus in the men's open light heavyweight division.  The four-rounder started with Hampp on the outside moving and scoring sharply on Falls.  By the second round, Falls was tying up Hampp on the inside and smothering his punches.  Falls scored with short hooks and forcing the referee to break them and frustrating Hampp from his game.  Hampp made several attempts in the fourth round to rally on some combinations, but the tie-ups and the wrestling inside earlier took too much energy and he lost on points. 

Hampp won the Tri-State Regional Golden Gloves earlier this year and competed in the Golden Gloves National Tournament of Champions in May.  The head coach for the national team was Will Reeves whom incidently is Falls' coach at Thompson Center in Columbus.  Hampp graduated from Philo High School this year and will enter the Air Force in September.

Ken Todd Jr. of Philo scored a walkover victory against Angel Mendiola of Columbus when the latter was unable to compete.  Todd won in the first show at the Powerplant last year and recently won his second national championship title at the Ohio State Fair in the Boy's Senior 132-pound division.

Jacob Luckett dropped his debut match to Nick Kirkpatrick of Coshocton, Dakota Outland lost to Cole Powers of Coshocton, Jeshua Luckett was bested by Caleb Caudill of Ashland, Ky. and Michael Norris dropped his match against Anthony Oshenbein of Dennison rounding out the rest of the matches for PAL's team efforts.