Starting in February and just now ending in April was the first ever Darby High school Intramural Boxing Club. Mr. Brian Linn , Spanish teacher and head coordinator of intramural sports at Darby had expressed interest in starting the program 2 years ago because one of his students had glowing remarks and an enthusiasm for our program and boxing in general. Mr. Linn then contacted us and we began to put in motion an intramural boxing club focusing on physical fitness and boxing technique. Twelve students, including Mr. Linn participated in the program which was held once a week for six weeks. Their boxing instruction, lead by Founder and professional boxer Russ Niggemyer, Mikayla Nebel , and “Iron” Dan Crabtree, began with basic fundamentals and conditioning and by the 5th and 6th weeks, the students (and Mr. Linn) were sparring! “All in all, it was a huge success and we thoroughly enjoyed working with the kids and hope to keep the program going at Darby High school and expand it to the other Hilliard High schools,” says Russ Niggemyer. We currently have a program at Hoffman Trails Elementary also and we are exploring options at Scioto Darby Creek Elementary as well. Sweet Science Boxing is and has been investing in the youth of our community for some time and in anticipation of no Middle School sports next year, we are diligently working to attract the kids to the greatest and purest form of competition in all of sports. Special thanks to Mr. Linn and Darby High school!

Saturday April 2nd, Sweet Science Boxing took part in the 1st annual Brookhaven – Stop the Violence amateur boxing event sponsored by Thompson Rec! The first boxer in line up for Sweet Science’s Jr. Team was 8 year old Deacon Sawchuk who took on 9 year old, 159lbs Gabe Caplinger of Zanesville, OH. First round had Sawchuk and Caplinger waste no time getting busy a the significantly more experienced Caplinger (10 fights) threw a steady stream of 1-2’s while Sawchuk bobbed,weaved, and landed hard right hands to the head and body. Second round young Deacon had the crowd on their feet as he landed hard, powerful right hands directly to the face of the larger Caplinger boy that brought the spectators out of their seats and about 20 seconds later in a seemingly shady move on behalf of the referee and perhaps the boy’s father sitting ringside as an official, the ref waved off the bout giving little Gabe a stoppage win over Deacon Sawchuk. This was a political move and nothing more ,but rest assured 8 year old Sawchuk was not the least bit deterred as even his young developing mind could grasp the reality of the situation being that he had lost the fight to the referee and Caplinger’s father rather than young Gabe Caplinger himself. Results for the rest of Sweet Science Jr. Team are as follows;

Dante’ Ettore in his amateur debut loses to Jer’mayne Woodard of Thompson Rec
Jesse Dombroski wins vs Noah Jamison of Thompson Rec
Nico Buoni loses to Akeem Mayle of Zanesville PAL