WATCHED by a handful of die-hard boxing fans at the refurbished Cliff Anderson Sports Hall, equipped with bucket seats and air-conditioning, Guyana’s pugilists dominated night two of the
Guyana Boxing Association (GBA) Caribbean Schoolboys Junior and Youth Boxing Tournament on Friday night.

The ninth annual three-night development card featured eight bouts on the second night, including three exhibition fights from the Republican Boxing Gym.
Eighth-time defending champion Guyana won all five of their International fights and dominated four of them.
The U-15 final between Guyana’s Ezekiel Bancroft and Trinidad and Tobago’s Jehu Vance was the most competitive.
After three entertaining rounds of boxing, the bout ended in a split decision for the Guyanese, but the contest could have gone either way.
Vane came out the more aggressive of the two and had Bancroft moving backwards with some well-executed left jabs to the head.
Both boxers threw some good shots as Bancroft counter- punched and scored with a clinical right to the body, but when the bell rang, it was Trini who had thrown the more punches.
In the second round, Bancroft, urged on by the vocal members of the large Guyana team, looked more assertive and threw combinations to the head and body. Vane retaliated with some good shots of his own.
In the third stanza, the young pugilists went toe-to-toe and fired clinical upper-cuts to the body while demonstrating excellent boxing skills for their age.
When the final bell rang, both corners were celebrating victory.
The small but partisan gathering, which included Olympian Keevin Allicock, Abiola Jackman, Dexter Marques, former City Mayor Patricia Chase-Green and GBA president and Director of Sport, Steve Ninvalle, knew it was a tough fight for the Guyanese lad.
When the verdict was announced, the noise level in the sparsely populated Sports Hall reached a crescendo.
None of the other bouts went the distance; Imhotep Vanderstoop outboxed his St Lucian opponent Nervan Metrisk with skilful glove work, resulting in the referee
halting the contest in 55 seconds of the third round.

Lennox Lawrence peppered St Maarten’s Tahmio Peterson with a series of vicious shots to the midsection before a crunching right to the head sent him sprawling to the canvas
in the International 60g U-17, which ended in 1 minute, 57 seconds of round two.
In the International 70g U-17 contest, Simeon Haymer was all over St Lucian Orlando Monrose, with the fight being stopped in 1 minute, 59 seconds of the third round.
The last fight of the night saw the ‘big boys’ clashing in the international 81 kg U-17, with Nisir Dean of the Bahamas taking several body blows from Lekiem Amores before losing
by TKO in 25 seconds of the second.
The first exhibition bout was between Kennard Smith and Noah Beaton, while Ezekiel Williams matched Gloves with Leron Alberts in the second and Winston Long and Ezekiel Gordon featured in the final exhibition match.
The tournament was scheduled to conclude last night with the presentation Ceremony.