O’Regan set things right by outhustling the pint-sized Gareth Samuel over three rounds to score his third straight victory in the New York Daily News sponsored tournament, which is now in its 77th year.
He’ll attempt to book a place in the final four when he returns to the ring at the Electric Industry Center, between Parsons Boulevard and Jewel Avenue, in Flushing, Queens, this Friday. The first bout on the card will be at 8 p.m.
O’Regan was an emphatic 4-1 winner over Samuel, with only one dissenting opinion on the cards of the five judges. But it wasn’t as stylish as his superb boxing display against the big Jamaican Anton Williams in his fight two weeks earlier.
There were few clean connects by either fighter and O’Regan, a carpenter, had his best moments when he and Samuel where going at each other on the ropes.
“Different fight, different style,” his Morris Park trainer Wendell Williams later quipped, admitting that Samuel’s 5-foot-5 stature may have put the 5- 11 O’Regan off his game.
“The strategy was to keep pressing; [Samuel] was tired,” Williams added.
O’Regan, a quarterfinalist at 178-pounds two years ago, was at times tentative and hardly used his physical advantages to control Samuel. Notably missing from his arsenal was a consistent jab that would have kept his diminutive foe at bay.
“I know that I could have done more,” the 28-year-old Limerick transplant confessed. “I was a bit sluggish and he was a strong fighter. I caught him with a few punches and he came back.”
Samuel, from Howard PAL, was most effective in the first round when he came out as busy as the proverbial bee and landed the best punch of the stanza, a thudding right hook.
O’Regan fought back before the bell, raking the smaller man with body shots on the ropes to make it a close round.
The infighting eventually wore down Samuel, who was outworked in rounds two and three.
Asked what they’d work on in the gym before Friday’s quarterfinals in Flushing, Williams said: “Throwing punches in combinations, hand speed and feet movement.”
POWER APPEAL REJECTED
Jamie Power’s bid to be reinstated in the Golden Gloves failed last week despite a blood test clearing him of any drug use.
O’Regan’s Morris Park clubmate and fellow Limerick native was disqualified from the Gloves after codeine was found in his system before a second round bout three weeks ago.
Power said he ingested the codeine through two tablets of Syndol, a painkiller he took on the morning of the Feb. 26 fight for a hunger headache.
A 24-year-old light heavyweight, Power took a blood test to prove that he was drug free. He was elated with the results.
“I told them that there was a mistake with the urine test. I showed them the blood test, but they said it doesn’t matter, ‘you’re out,’ ” he said.
Rather then dejection, motivation is what Power has derived from the entire experience.
“It’s just made me more determined to win the Gloves next year,” he vowed. “I’ll work on my mistakes and come back stronger. After that, I’ll turn professional.”
Trainer Victor Pena said he’d keep Power busy by entering him in local amateur shows until the 2005 Gloves qualifiers start next January.
A powerful left hooker, the 24-year-old was tipped to go all the way in the 178-pound novice class this year after defeating favorite Reginald LaCrete in the tournament’s second round.