September 9th is the weekend after Labor Day. Galveston, Texas was still recovering from the holiday. Luckily no hurricanes have threatened the region during this storm season. As I write this story the prices of gasoline is dropping like a rock. This is because many of the refineries that produce most of this countries fuel are back in full production. A major oil discovery in the Gulf of Mexico has given rise to speculation in the stock market that has helped drive prices lower. This means that we can now afford to drive to distant karate tournaments.
Wayne Nguyen is the head of the Texas Karate Organization “TKO.” This year he picked Galveston for his tournament. A wise choice considering that everyone loves the place. The San Louis Convention Center is a massive convention center recently built along the seawall and facing the ocean. This was a good choice for The Ocean Nationals. No one complained because after the tournament most of us planed to have some Texas size fun after this Texas size tournament. We were not let down.
This was the largest Ocean Nationals so far with competitors coming from around Texas. Large schools and some pro teams were their in full force. Team focus showed up with its entire fight team and many of its silver team under belt competitors. The Bushiban Karate Organization, Team K2, Team USA Martial Arts, Team GOP and several other big teams showed up with many competitors to elevate the level of competition and enhance the overall size of this AOK rated event.
First up was the junior under belt specialty and black belt women with Cassie Hendon winning women’s adult forms and Margarette Beasly first in senior women’s forms. Then senior specialty and senior 45 plus forms was won by Team Focus member Johnnie Murphy. David Johnson, head of Team K2, was first in adult specialty. Another Team Focus member, Andrew Carresco managed to rise above the other champions there and pull out wins in black belt weapons and adult black belt forms. Manuel Serrano was the senior 35 plus forms and soft forms champion and Courtney Allen was first in black belt self defense.
In the junior black belt divisions Team AGMA with Kyle McLean and Steven Smith won team forms. Kyle McLean also won 14 – 15 black belt boys. A newcomer to the AOK was Justin Jordan who defeated a large crowd in 14 -17 year old black belt specialty. Evelyn Mattes won under 13 black belt specialty and 12 – 13 girls forms.
Fidencio Cruz was the 10 – 11 years old black belt forms. Nassor Rush took home the boys 12 – 13 years old black belt forms championship. Ashley Wood was the girls 14 – 15 girls forms champion. Eric Cantu of Team K2 won the boys 16 – 17 years old forms. Some of the junior point sparring champions were CJ Haywood, Morgan Fontenont and Brian O’Grady.
Adult sparring was the final group to compete. In the adult black belt point sparring divisions Daniel Perez defeated Norman Roberts in a close fight to win 35+ point sparring. Joe Gillum came out on top in the last fight with Barry Benton for the 45+ men’s division. Antonio Anderson took on newcomer William Cates in one of the most unorthodox contests I’ve seen in a while. Cates certainly launched some of the weirdest attacks possible. Antonio had trouble with Cates style at first but eventually adapted and overcame Cates for his win in one of the most unusual fights in a while.
Men’s Black belt Middle weight point sparring pitted a variety of styles against each other with Andrew Carrasco coming out on top. Tony Mosley fought it out in a large 35+ men’s middle weight point sparring division with some rather unusual fights for his win. Tony Mosley ended up going for men’s point sparring grand championship.
Jamal Hassan winner of the men’s light weight point sparring ended up fighting Andrew Carrasco for the men’s black belt point sparring grand championship. I have seen these guy fight for many years and believe me I knew this was going to be a great fight. Both fighters are fast, light, experienced and highly skilled. As could be expected Andrew started off trying to assert his dominance. Jamal was not going to allow that and countered with his usual evasive tactics. Jamal started moving inside of Andrew and managed to score. Andrew cought on and adapted his footwork to overcome Jamal’s tactics and pulled ahead. Jamal’s efforts to over come Andrew’s eventual lead was fruitless as time concluded with Andrew Carrasco winning the 2006 Ocean Nationals Men’s point sparring grand championship.
