Results
On Saturday, July 22nd, the team went to Azusa Pacific University to compete at a Grappling X. To kick things off for the kids, eight-year old Aaron Acosta, had 2 matches and won both via armbar. His brother, Kevyn Mendez, followed suit by winning with a mounted cross choke and arm bar. Alyssa Ramirez got thrown into the boys division, but had two great matches leading to a bronze medal! Last up for kids, Josiah Eastman, competed in a best of 3 series against 1 other athlete. After barely losing the first match, he would battle back to win the next 2 to go on and get 1st place.
For the Adults, we had a total of 10 competitors. The submission of the day most likely belongs to Raphael Caroline, whom used a loop choke to get the win in the finals. Dylan Tanner also had a nice arm bar for his 3rd place match to earn himself a bronze medal. Another 3rd place winner was Nicholas Barbosa after having 2 tough battles. With the most matches on the day, Elijah Martinez and Luke Eastman, both went 3-0 getting gold medals. Elijah (blue belt) weighed in at 153 lbs competing in the under 180 lb category, and used cardio to his advantage pushing the pace in all 3 of his matches (While also performing his patented overhead sweep like 5 times.) Luke captured 1 triangle and then won his other matches 12-2 & 20-0. His brother, Micah Eastman, also competed having 2 matches against some well rounded opponents. Among others were Ramon Arrizon, who had 2 good matches, fighting hard the whole time. And brown belt Jose Ramirez, who also had 2 matches, winning both to get 1st place. The most important submission of the day probably belongs to Luke Cohen. Down by 2 points in the finals, Cohen threw up a triangle before switching to the arm bar. Trying to defend, his opponent began to roll, which led to Cohen bellying down with the arm using all his body weight to get the tap. The day was then wrapped up by Ryan Vega, winning both his matches via kimura & a choke from the back. At 18 years old, this was Ryans 1st competition in the blue belt Adult division earning himself a gold medal.
As a team, we collected 9 gold medals and 3 bronze medals, earning us 1st place for the Adult Gi Team category!
