34th Annual North South Judo Tournament 2018

The 34th Annual North South Judo Tournament was at the Belleville Family Sportsplex in Belleville, Illinois on April 21, 2018. 4th dan Derick Wellman and 7th dan Randy Pierce officiated this legendary contest. David Burke was coaching his second consecutive North South Judo Tournament. Sam Coln represented White Dragon Judo Club as the lone member of Team South in the team competition. Team South mounted a gallant comeback late in the match but Team North held on to win gold by winning the last three matches of the contest. The junior division witness the debut of four judokas on Team White Dragon. Caleb Bass took silver in his first contest. He bounced back from losing his first match and won a marathon in the semi final round. It was a learning experience for Anna Koepke. Anna had her work cut out for her but did not seemed overwhelmed. The young judoka fell short of her expectations but earned a bronze medal and the Good Sportmanship Award for the tournament. The brother duo of Snir and Sagi Ben Abraham was nothing short of entertaining. The siblings rivalry in practice translated greatly to shiai. The brothers were placed in separate categories. Sagi got off to a good start but was unable to take away the gold. He got bronze. Snir won his bronze medal match via osaekomi. Alex Halon returned to competition with a bronze medal showing. Mark Ter-Hovhannisyan won silver in his weight class while his sister Isabella Ter-Hoyannisyan won gold against heavy opposition. Another Judge has been sited on a judo mat. This Judge plays for Team White Dragon. Joe Judge fought in his first judo tournament of his short career. His debut was highlighted with a nice soto makikomi in the preliminaries. He went an impressive 3-1 on the day. Byron Helmrich won his first silver medal of the year. Sam Coln won his matchup in the team competition and won a marathon of a match in the semi final to take a silver medal home for the day. Adnan Gutic won gold in the veteran middleweight class. That is his second consecutive gold this year. Phillip Vojta took the MVP honors for the tournament. He went undefeated displaying the Throw of the tournament, an awesome uchimata with beautiful rotation for the ippon score. The young judoka continues to rack up medals and the Vojta Express shows no signs of stopping.

 

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