DMV Amateurs Roll At National Golden Gloves
by Gautham Nagesh
Washington-area prospects swept through the first two rounds of the National Golden Gloves tournament this week in Mesquite, Nevada. Local stars David Grayton (above, center), D'Mitrius Ballard, Jerry Odom, and Danny Kelly all scored stoppages in the second round on Wednesday to roll into the quarterfinals.
According to the official results, all the local fighters advanced through the opening round except Albi Sadikas of LA Boxing in the 201-lb division, who lost to Jonathan Thrasher of Knoxville by decision. The big surprise of round two came at 132 lbs, where Kendo Castaneda of Texas upset Gary Antonio Russell on points. Russell is the younger brother of featherweight contender Gary Russell Jr. and considered one of the area’s top prospects. [[MORE]]
Also in the second round, Jonathan Howard of Hamstead, N.C. lost at 108 lbs. to Angel Valencia and Gregory Outlaw of Sugar Ray Leonard’s went down at 114 against Thomas Huitt-Johnson of Kansas City. But Maryland prospects Gervonta Davis and Michael Reed moved on to the quarters at 123 and 141 lbs., giving the DMV a real shot at the national title in 6 out of the top 7 weight classes. As our friend Gary “Digital” Williams noted last month, this crop of local amateurs is poised to be one of the best in recent memory. The coming years could be the salad days for boxing in our nation’s capital. (Great picture of many of the fighters at the link above).
Like Williams, we were surprised to see Sadikas in the national tourney, since he lost in the regional finals of the novice division to Curtis Iverson of the Marines. The open division champ at 201 was Darnell Price of the Marines, but his Twitter feed indicates the Marines wouldn’t let him travel to Mesquite to compete. We hope open division runner-up Devar Ferhadi of Maryland was given a shot first.
We would be remiss if we didn’t mention Hudsonville, Mich. heavyweight Jordan Shimmell, who is fighting in his seventh national tournament before turning professional on May 19 in Holland on the Johnny Garcia undercard. Shimmell won the national title in 2009 and advanced to the quarters on Wednesday by stopping Thrasher in the first round. According to MLive, Shimmell beat Benjamin Dobbs of the USS Ronald Reagan to advance to the semifinals at 201 lbs. on Thursday.
Other Grand Rapids-area boxers advancing to the semifinals included Vincent Jennings at 132 lbs, pictured here in an excellent portrait by photographer Brian Kelly. Christian Thomas of Grand Rapids made the semifinals at 178 by beating Nigel Rogers of Pennsylvania.