By Michael Letendre
This past weekend, the Bristol Sports Armory was the host for College Boxing’s 47th Annual NCBA Eastern Regional Tournament – sponsored by the University of Connecticut Boxing Club – as several athletes put it on the line in Bristol during a National Qualifying event.
According to Bunty Ray, one of the owners of the Bristol Sports Armory, just about 500 athletes and spectators made to way to 61 Center St. over the sessions on Friday and Saturday for some amazing action in the ring.
Over the last three years, the Bristol Sports Armory has been the choice to host UConn boxing and head coach Mike Campisano is a fan of the facility.
“This has been a phenomenal venue, a great venue,” said Campisano of the Armory. “These guys have been very gracious to us and pretty much opened up their arms for this event. It’s a great event for Bristol. I mean, you have an old-time armory with boxing in it.”
“It doesn’t get better than that…college boxing in an armory. How can it be better than that?”
UConn started up its boxing program in 2015 and its success has been impressive from the start.
Coming into this year, the Huskies’ growing program has seen 11 National qualifiers, five All Americans and five National Bronze medalists come through Storrs.
And Campisano said that UConn sent its best ever team to the qualifiers.
“It’s been our greatest year,” said Campisano of UConn’s program. “When this tournament is over, I’ll have 18 kids get at least one fight in since September. That’s not counting my varsity kids. That’s like unheard of. These kids have just been dedicated like no other year I’ve been here.”
Campisano helped establish the UConn boxing team from the start and each and every year, the team continues to grow and improve in the ring – growing from extremely small and humble beginnings.
“It’s been progressively growing and growing,” said Campisano of the team. “The first year we had the team, we had two heavy bags that we would place on chairs against the wall. And now we have 15 hanging, heavy bags. We have a portable ring we kind of set up and we have more mitts and gloves than you can imagine.”
“It’s been a great run.”
After intermission on Saturday at the armory, weight classes 156 through 195 clashed in the ring, heavily dominated by boxers from Penn State and West Point as Army seemed to have one the loudest contingents at the facility along with UConn.
Most of the bouts went the distance but there were more than a couple standing eight counts and in the 156 Regional final, two outstanding female boxers hit the ring.
Army’s Ruby Romsland battered Penn State’s Marisa over their encounter with Romsland knocking down her competitor three times for a victory by TKO.
And for UCONN at 165M Novice Final, Benjamin Roy outlasted Penn State’s Sumana Kromah to seize the win.
Most of the matches went the full three rounds and fighters of various size and skill levels all made good accounting of themselves in Bristol.
The relationship between the Bristol Sports Armory and UConn’s Boxing team has been a good one and the action in the ring was simply tremendous.
The athletes stayed at the Homeward Suites in Southington and were the events host hotel of the boxing qualifier.
All parties involved would like to continue to see the boxing event grow and remain at the armory in Bristol.
“As long as these guys want to have us, we want to come back,” said Campisano. “Between the marriage of the host hotel and the armory, I mean, it’s been fantastic.”
On UConn’s Boxing Team Fanpage, Campisano outlined exactly what these tremendous athletes have to endure when hitting the ring under the UConn banner.
“[There’s] no special dining hall or training facility,” wrote Campisano on the UConn Facebook page. “No autographs or scholarships, just student athletes with a desire to be the best.”
NOTES…Chris D’Amato, another one of the Armory operators, and Ray were called into the ring during intermission as Campisano awarded the duo a framed program, signed by everyone who was in the tournament, on behalf of the UConn Boxing team.
“I just wanted to thank these guys for having us here,” said Campisano during the presentation. “It’s a great event [at the Armory]. If you’re local and wanted to do a sports camp, this is a state-of-the-art place to go.”
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