Champions to be decided Tuesday



Liberty's Mike Marvin and Hubbard's Anthony Fidram are slated for the final fight.
HUBBARD -- Champions will be crowned Tuesday night at Hubbard High School, as the 17th K.O. Drugs High School Boxing Tournament comes to a close with 29 bouts.
Twenty high schools will be represented, with Canfield leading the way with eight participants.
Upperclass heavyweights Mike Marvin of Liberty and Anthony Fidram of Hubbard will square off in the final fight of the event.
Marvin, a three sport athlete at Liberty High and a three year veteran of KO Drugs boxing, has won championships in lower weight classes every year. He has a career record of 14-1 in the tournament and is 3-0 this year.
Fidram has been most impressive with a 4-0 record this year, using remarkable accuracy and hand speed.
The numbers
There will be 12 champions crowned in the 9th and 10th grade underclass division and 17 more in the 11th and 12th grade upperclass division, with nine returning champions seeking to defend their titles.
A female bout will top off the upperclass slate, with Ursuline's Kim Root (1-0) battling Stephanie Sahli from Struthers for the flyweight crown. This will be Sahli's first appearance in the tournament.
The night will open with underclass bouts that will have Boardman's Zach Smith and Rick Wanamaker seeking the bantamweight title, and Canfield's Kyle Kunkle and Blake Flick battling for the featherweight championship. Both Kunkle and Flick have 3-0 records and they are among 35 boxers who will enter the ring Tuesday with undefeated records.
Three other underclass fights feature boxers with 2-0 records facing each other. They are Fitch's Dave Castronova and Marquise Wise from New Castle, going for the junior middleweight championship; Rocky Nolfi of Lowellville against Canfield's Dustin Flick for the super middleweight crown, and Kyle Banna from Canfield battling Ursuline's Don Hanni for a heavyweight title.
Flick and his brother Blake, along with underclass middleweight J.J. Pankewicz and his brother Chris, who is an upperclass super middleweight, are four Canfield students seeking championships.
Chris Pankewicz, a returning champion, has a 7-0 all-time KO Drugs record.
All-Boardman
Boardman's Kiez Smith is 11-1 all-time and going after his third tournament title in an upperclass junior middleweight bout with Jim Pipoly, also of Boardman.
Campbell Memorial, with six fighters, has Kosta Tsagaris (3-0) in against Struthers' Tom Peluso (2-0), a 2003 underclass champion, for the upperclass lightweight crown.
Jose Mateo (8-1 all-time) will battle Campbell classmate Anthony Ramun (4-1 all-time) for the upperclass super cruiserweight championship.
Two KO Drugs veterans who both won 2003 titles at other weights, Campbell's Jake Guriceo and Larry Starr from Hubbard, are a combined 13-1 all-time. They will fight for the upperclass light heavyweight championship.
Another high school boxer who will defend his championship is West Middlesex's Josh Fette. He is undefeated in five fights in two years and Tuesday night he'll go against Warren Harding's Derek Wagner for the upperclass super heavyweight title.
The doors will open at 6 p.m. with the first fight beginning at 7.