Youth boxers return with medals

Two amateur girl boxers recently returned from the Junior Olympics with medals and some serious bragging rights.

Sarah Garrison, 13, and Emily Garrison, 10,  of Rock Springs, both earned spots at the Junior Olympic National Championship; and showed their competitors why they earned a spot by coming home with medals. The 2016 USA Boxing Prep and Junior Olympic National Championship tournament took place June 25 through July 2 in Dallas.

More than 900 athletes from peewee division to the 18-year-old youth division stepped into the ring during the tournament.

Sarah came home with the bronze medal, while Emily came home with the gold. Both were proud of their accomplishments and have already set their sights on returning to nationals next year.

Sarah, who has been boxing for four years, won the Wyoming Junior Olympic/Prep Title, the WyoMonDak Regional title, and the Division 10 Silvergloves Regional Title for the last three years. The WyoMonDak Region is made up of Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota. To that, she can add her bronze medal in the 13-to 14-year-old 119-pound intermediate female division.

Emily, with only a year's experience under her belt and who is fairly new to boxing, competes against eight, nine and 10-year-old girls that weigh 75 pounds in the peewee female division. She fought in the Wyoming National Prep Junior Olympic Tournament, the Wyoming State Games and WyoMonDak Regional Championship to earn her a spot at nationals.

During their fights, the Garrisons were judged by five judges who were looking at ring generalship, effective aggression, defense, technique and adherence to the rules. Under ring generalship, the judges look to see which boxer is controlling the pace of the fight, while under effective aggression, the judges look to see which boxer isn't charging and which boxer isn't getting hit.

The judges tally up their results to determine who won the fight. Sarah and the rest of her family felt she should have moved onto the championship round. Sarah fought against two-time Southern California State Champion Jasmine Cisneros of Lancaster, Calif. Cisneros was declared the winner by the judges.

"We felt we had landed more punches," Sarah said.

The Garrisons didn't want to act like poor sports, but they couldn't believe Sarah's name wasn't called to advance to the championship round.

"We actually wondered if the announcer made a mistake at first," Sarah's mother, Amanda said. "We've seen a lot of fights and you get a feel for who's winning."

They weren't the only ones who were surprised. Several of the other competitors and audience members couldn't understand why Sarah didn't advance. The judges, however, stuck with their decision; and Sarah walked away with a bronze. That didn't stop the family from looking at the fight again.

After reviewing the video of the fight, the Garrisons only confirmed what they believed to be true. Sarah had landed more punches on Cisneros by two to one. She also landed harder punches by three to one.

The Garrisons left with a little bit of a bitter feeling, but came up with a solution for next year if they advance to nationals.

"We're going to try to get technical knockouts," Sarah said. "If you knock someone out, you move on. So it is taken out of the judges' hands."

Sarah said she wasn't necessarily trying to knockout any of her competitors this year because she wanted to show her punching and counter-punching skills. That will change next year. Sarah will still show off her punching skills, but she will try hard to knockout all of her competitors on the national level.

As for Emily, the Garrisons couldn't have been prouder. She did well in all six of her matches, including the championship round.

Emily surprised herself and everyone.

Since this was her first year competing, she was just happy to get the chance to fight at the national level.

"I was very excited. It means that I'm good at my sport," Emily said.

The gold medal win was still sinking in for Emily. It was almost like she didn't realize that with the gold medal she is now ranked No. 1 in the country in her division.

Sarah is ranked No. 3 in the country in her division. Both were happy with the experience, even if it didn't quite work out the way Sarah had hoped it would.

"We knew if we did the best we could, we could be proud of ourselves no matter what," Sarah said.

Both girls left it all out in the ring and can't wait to go back next year.