Local boxer is on track for return to national championship
tournament
Hollister boxer Tony Corrales took his first step toward making
a return trip to the Golden Gloves national championships last
weekend when he defeated Salinas’ Jugo Sanchez at the Central Coast
Golden Gloves quarterfinal box off in Visalia.
Local boxer is on track for return to national championship tournament
Hollister boxer Tony Corrales took his first step toward making a return trip to the Golden Gloves national championships last weekend when he defeated Salinas’ Jugo Sanchez at the Central Coast Golden Gloves quarterfinal box off in Visalia.
Corrales, 18, beat the 17-year-old Sanchez by a majority decision in the light welterweight division (141 pounds) to advance to the semifinal round of the Central Coast box off.
“[Sanchez] kept holding him and running, holding him and running,” said Zeke Lopez, owner and trainer of the Bull Dog Boxing Gym in Hollister, where Corrales trains. “That’s how it went the whole three rounds. It was kind of boring, but he got the job done.”
Corrales will fight Tulare’s Vincente Guzman, 25, this weekend in the semifinals at the Aleman Gym in Fresno. Although Guzman is seven years older than Corrales, it’s more or less par for the course for the Hollister boxer at this point in his career.
In fact, Corrales defeated Guzman last year on his way to nationals.
“He beat him fairly easily last year,” Lopez recalls, “but every year is different.
“It should be a pretty good fight.”
Corrales has routinely fought older and more experienced fighters throughout his amateur career, though. Depending on how well he does this time around in the Golden Gloves tournament, Corrales could be making a turn to the professional ranks very soon.
However, that is if he can prove himself to Lopez first.
“I wasn’t too happy with his performance (last weekend), but it wasn’t all him,” said Lopez, referring to the hold-and-run technique of Sanchez, who trains out of the Salinas Boxing Club.
“He hadn’t fought in a while, but I expect him to do a lot better (this weekend),” Lopez added. “If he’s going to turn pro, then he’s going to do a heckuva lot better.”
Corrales was Lopez’ first national qualifier last year at 17 years old, the age minimum for Golden Gloves, which allows fighters up to 34 years of age.
At the national championships in Grand Rapids, Mich., last year, Corrales lost his first-round bout by decision to New England’s Daniel O’Connor.
O’Connor, then 22, had won the U.S Future Stars National Boxing Championship in Colorado that year and was also listed as an Olympic alternate for the Beijing Games.
If Corrales wins this weekend in Fresno, he will advance to the Central Coast Golden Gloves finals in Stockton on March 5, then to the San Francisco regional on March 21.
Victories there would propel Corrales to the state finals in Sacramento on April 4, then to the National Golden Gloves Tournament of Champions in Denver, slated for June 8-13.
