Boxers Advance In Junior Olympics
4-26-2009
Ohio’s Junior Olympic Boxing Tournament finished in Defiance last weekend with two area athletes advancing to regional competition.
Zanesville’s Michael Roark will represent the state at the Region #5 Junior Olympics at Barberton in the 154-pound senior division. The tournament will bring together champions from Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky to build a team for the national championships to be held at Denver in June.
Roark has boxed for two years at the Police Athletic League of Zanesville- Muskingum County. He attends Zanesville High School and this Ohio Championship is his first.
Trevor Mourer of Cambridge also advanced in the 176+ pound senior division. Mourer is currently ranked #5 in the United States by USA Boxing and competed at last year’s national championships. He attends Meadowbrook High School.
Ken Todd Jr. lost in his semi-final match to Robert Thompson of Lima in the senior 132-pound division. The match was a technical display of skills with the judges scoring the match 3-2 in favor of Thompson. Todd is a student at Philo High School
Michael Norris competed for his first time in the men’s division of the U.S. National Championships Ohio State qualifier held with the J.O. tournament. Norris met Robert Easter Jr. of Toledo in the junior welterweight class and quickly found why he has the country’s #5 ranking dropping the match to the experienced and much faster Easter. This tournament was Norris’ first in the open men’s division. Norris attends the Vocational School in Zanesville.
All four boxers train at the P.A.L. in Zanesville.
Mourer Wins Regional Junior Olympics
5-25-2009
BARBERTON- The Region #5 Junior Olympics boxing tournament ended on Monday, May 25 setting the winners on the team to compete for the national championship.
Trevor Mourer representing the Ohio regional team defeated Curtis White of the Lake Erie Association in the heavyweight division finals. Even though Mourer was forced to give away 35-pounds to Curtis, it made no difference as Mourer balanced his attacks and stayed out of reach of Curtis’ obvious power advantage.
By the second round Mourer added his own power and recklessly traded power shots leaving Curtis on the stool at the end of the round. Curtis never made it off the stool for the third and Mourer earned his second shot at the national championship by TKO.
Last year Mourer made it to the national finals taking fifth place and a national ranking. The Junior Olympic rankings are used to select teams to represent the United States for international competitions all over the world each year. Region #5 consists of Ohio, Lake Erie, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois and Kentucky.
Michael Roark also competed representing Ohio in the middleweight division meeting Michigan’s Joseph Bonas in the finals. The more experienced Bonas got off the first shot with Roark losing the match trying to catch up from the slow start. Bonas trains at the world-famous Kronk Gym in Detroit renowned for world champion professionals as Lennox Lewis, Tommy Hearns and others.
Roark took home the runner-up slot in his first attempt in the junior olympics and will have his second shot next year when he is 16. He won the Ohio State qualifier to earn his chance to make the regional team on April 26.
The national championships will be held in June this year at Denver. Mourer and Roark train in Zanesville at the Police Athletic League.
PAL of Zanesville-Muskingum County is a non-profit organization providing programs like this to all youth. They are in need of operating funds for all their programs including Boxing, Wrestling, Youth Leaders, Scrapbooking, Karate and Summer Swimming and rely on the community support for it. Anyone wishing to help support the free programs they provide should directly contact PAL of Zanesville, P.O. Box 1001, Zanesville, Ohio 43702-1001. You can see more at www.palzanesville.org at their website.
Mourer Competes At National Junior Olympics
6-12-2009
DENVER- The 2009 National Junior Olympics finals in boxing ended Thursday night with PAL’s Trevor Mourer finishing fifth overall.
Mourer competed at 176+ pound division winning the state and regional tournaments to earn a chance at the national championship. He moved through the preliminaries into the quarterfinals on Tuesday meeting Trevor McComby of Arizona.
McComby was heavily favored by experience but found Mourer better than expected in the first round. In the second Mourer tried to reverse McComby’s lead and was caught by a vicious body shot causing the referee to stop it there. Mourer’s finish matched his effort last year when he also made the national finals finishing fifth in his first attempt.
Ohio’s only other juniors making it to the national finals included Donald Anderson and Hakeem Watkins of Columbus and Albert Bell of Toledo.
The U. S. Junior Olympics ranks athletes for selection to international competitions for the following year. Every state and region is represented through tough qualifiers and must adhere to the U. S. Olympic Committee’s athlete code of conduct and maintain their readiness to compete.
The Denver Coliseum hosted the tournament which conducted the men’s and women’s National Championships together with the Junior Olympics for the first time ever. In 2011 the tournament will qualify athletes for the U.S. Olympic Team trials in the selection of the team to the world Olympic Games at London, England in 2012.
