Brown, Peev box out jitters, win first fights

Doing anything for the first time can be an extremely frustrating ordeal.

Most little kids fall off of their bicycles when they try to ride the first time. Babies who try to stand on their own two feet for the first time will more than likely find themselves planted back on the floor.

So with two of Penn State's four boxers fighting for the first time ever at Saturday's Virginia Military Institute Keydet Invitational, no one was expecting instant success.

That is except for the boxers themselves.

Penn State boxers were victorious in three of four bouts, surprising everyone including their own coach, Bill Wrable.

"We got lucky on a couple," he said. "That's a hostile place to box down there."

Mike Brown and Gotce Peev obviously didn't think so. The two rookie boxers won their respective bouts by referee decisions. Brown, who was scheduled to take on Lock Haven's Dave Drudgins, instead was matched against VMI's Fred Cummings at 132 pounds. Brown, nevertheless, defeated the Keydet on his own turf to win his first-ever bout.

At 190 pounds, Penn State's Gotce Peev won a decision over Shippensburg's Phil Smalls, who lost a bout Feb. 1 to Penn State's Dave Herron at the Nittany Lion Invitational.

Wrable was proud of his two rookie boxers and said the trip to Lexington, Va., was about all he could have hoped for boxers who were seeing their first action.

"They both were tired," Wrable said, "but your first bout you're so nervous that you burn so much energy before you even fight."

"I was a little tired," Peev said. "I won. So I figured it was pretty good."

Greg Fielder also knocked off a Keydet boxer, decisioning VMI's Eric Marshall in three rounds. He said his bout was good experience for him, but he is eager to start working out some kinks in practice.

"I felt pretty good. It was a learning experience," Fielder said. "Every bout you go into you learn something new about yourself."

The lone Penn State boxer to lose Saturday was Matt Arentz, whose bout against VMI's Ernesto Sampson had to be called late in the third round because of excessive standing-eight counts. The rule says three standing-eight counts in a bout cause the bout to be stopped.

"(Arentz) was getting smacked around pretty good," Wrable said. "I never have a problem with a fight being stopped."

Wrable also said despite the three wins this week and six the week before, his boxers are clearly out of shape. The team will practice three times this week in preparation for next weekend's action at Lock Haven, and Wrable plans on pushing his team to the limit.

"(Conditioning) is like our biggest downfall," Peev said. "I think (Wrable)'s gonna try to fix that problem."