Two Texans Score International Gold in Ecuador

Two Texans take home international championship gold at The American Boxing Confederation (AMBC) elite Championships in Guayaquil, Ecuador. The tournament ran from March 22 to April 2. Jennifer Lozano from Laredo captured a finals victory and dominated the tournament from start to finish. The Gateway City native took a 5-0 decision over Argentine fighter Tatiana Flores Milagros of Argentina to capture the 50 KG (110-pound) championship. On the men's side, in the 51 KG division (112 pounds), championship Roscoe Hill, from Spring, Texas, takes home the Gold after also taking a 5-0 decision over Argentine Ramon Quiroga dominated Romero Reyes Erislan of Cuba in the Gold Medal round.

19-year-old Hill, came out of some level of obscurity to capture the silver medal in the 2021 World Championships in Belgrade, Serbia, back in November. In his first international tournament, Hill scored staggering upsets over seasoned vets like Federico Serra of Italy on his way to coming up just short to Kazakhstan fighter Saken Bibossinov and capturing Silver. If 2021 was his coming out party he certainly made a bold statement to start 2022 in Ecuador to show 2021 was no fluke. He received a bye in the first round due to his high seeding and then beat Martin Perez of Panama by 5-0 decision, also shout our Quiroga to advance to the finals and then handed in the Gold Medal performance by outclassing Reyes Erislan of Cuba.

Lozano captured the national championship title at Shreveport back in December when she outpointed Kayla Gomez of El Paso in the finals. She came out and put together an absolutely dominated week of boxing. She blanked Liliana Murillo Deicy of Columbia (5-0) in the first round. Stopped Ecuador's Genesis Gomez in front of her home crowd in the second round and then dominated Flores Milagros to capture the Gold medal. 

Texas was well represented in addition to Hill and Lozano. There were many other Texans  representing the US in the Contential Championships including Emilio Garcia,  of Laredo, Kayla Gomez of El Paso, and Josh Edwards of Houston who won his first-round contest over Mexican boxer Luis Gomez Meneses, by a score of 5-0.

Puro 956: Emilio Garcia & Ranulfo Bocanegra advance, lead a strong Texas Showing in the USA Boxing National Championships

Laredo’s Emilo Garcia Scores Impressive Victory in Shreveport

Laredo is known as the Gateway City and is best known for being home to the legendary Canizalez brothers. Orlando and Gabriel both captured world Titles in the '80s and '90s. The city is having a reboot of amazing young boxing talent. Jorge Castaneda, Josh Juarez, each scored major wins on massive cards and upstarts like Jaime Jasso and Nick Molina are emerging world-level talents in their own right. The talent in the gateway city continues to shine as Emilio Garcia, perhaps the favorite to win the USA Boxing National Championships in the 139-pound Elite division scored a sensational 4-1 decision victory over David Villalobos of San Joaquin County, California. Controlling the fight with his jab and not letting his elusive and quick-footed opponent out of his sight, Garcia set up perfect power shots that rocked his opponent and body shots the slowed him down. Garcia, perhaps the favorite to win Nationals advances on to the round of 8 and will face the winner between Jacob Nuevas of Nevada and Joseph Audby of California. Garcia has an outstanding amateur career that includes a win over Austin, native, and current NABF Junior Super Featherweight Titleholder Floyd Schofield of Austin, Texas, who sports a perfect record of 8-0 (6).

In the Youth division 15-year old Rio Grande Valley native Ranulfo Bocanegra put on a show to lead the Texas Youth movements in the USA Boxing National Championships. Bocanegrawho sports over 100 amateur fights beat fellow Texan Jeremiah Martinez of Houston on points in a 112-pound bout. Bocanegra, of Donna, Texas moves on to the next round of the prelims and will fight tomorrow. The star amateur does not plan on turning pro in the near future and says he wants to stay in the amateur ranks and compete for a spot on the US Olympic team in the 2024 Paris Games. *Emilio Garcia W Davis Vilalobos 

In other Texas news #1 ranked 112-pound youth fighter Diego Barron of Mesquite, Texas, survived a bit of a scare from a very game and tricky Armando Juarez of San Antonio in an All-Texas showdown after a very competitive opening three minutes that the judges favored the Alamo City native 4-1, Barron righted the ship and dominated the final two rounds to earn the decision victory and move to the next round. Barron will fight on Thursday in the Quarter Finals. 

Several other Texans were victories on the day as well!  see the list below:

Anthony Galvin Houston W Michael O'conner

Domani McMillian Forney w Maz Manriquez

Angel Vargas Garland, W Izaac Rivera

Sevein Portillo Amarillo W Roland I vizcarra
Javier Guerro Dallas, W Aidan Flat

Jaime Borja Ceder Creek W Da'Juan Hayes

Jaderick Perez Wichita Falls W Aydin Aydin Nagtalon
Gerardo Favila Welaco wLeonardo Blancas
Antonio Rico Austin W Qawi McFadden

Jose Artigo Houston W Andruw Rodriguez

Guillermo Trujillo Mesquite W Damon Romero Houston

Kayson Jones Grand Prairie W Tyson McGriff Duncanville Texas
Giancarlo Rodriguez Carrizo Springs W Kevin Aceves Garland, Texas

Yandel Pena Houston w Armado Cruz Houston Texas

Tristan Saenz San Juan w Ivan Sanchez Edinburg Texas

steven Grady Katy W Christian Paez San Antonio, Texas

Angel Mata Austin, W John Goodnight
Diego Barron Mesquite W Armando Juarez San Antonio

Ranulfo Bocanegra Donna W Jeremiah Martinez Houston,

Emilio Garcia Laredo, W David Villalobos
Kevin Ayala San Antonio W Anthony Vickers

Narcizo Cerrato Houston W Esteban Orosco Midland

Jarvin Jones Needville, W Kenton Walker

Dylan Ponce Houston W Alexander De Alba

Joshua Edwards Houston W Joe Rinaldi

Henry Richard Conroe w Emiliano Ortiz Uvdale