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PHOENIXVILLE — Sharline
Mendez, a 15-year-old female amateur boxer, ventures 32
miles one way to Phoenixville every day from her Reading
home with her parents, Carlos Mendez and Sandra Canceo.
Her daily destination is
the Phoenixville Area Police Athletic League (PAL) boxing
program, whose central location is the
Civic
Center
,
123 Main St
.
But all the miles of
driving and hours of training have already paid handsome
dividends for the fighting young female, who is a ninth
grader in the Reading High School.
Mendez has already made
quite a name for herself, and her aims are even higher down
the road.
Mendez, a Golden Gloves
winner, captured another belt and trophy this past weekend
when she won the Mid-Atlantic Regional Junior Olympics title
for the age 16-17 division for 140-pounders in an East Coast
tournament at
Wilmington
,
Del.
She will now advance to
the Junior Olympics National Tournament at
Marquette
,
Mich.
, in June.
Mendez upset Ashley
Howard, last year’s regional champion and a veteran of 48
fights, in the finals to land her crown. Howard is a
four-time
Ohio
state champion who had no
losses in her previous 20 bouts.
“She (Mendez) is really
doing well,” said Phoenixville PAL head trainer John
Mulvenna. “She is right there at the top. We keep hoping
and hope she wins. It is the highest you can go in Junior
Olympics. It is phenomenal what she has achieved. She
deserves a lot of credit to go as far as she did. It is
quite an achievement for this (small) club.”
Mendez is soaring high in
the USA Amateur Boxing realm and is seeking to gain a high
ranking predicated on the national tournament. After that,
Mulvenna said, she could represent the
United States
in international
competition.
Women’s Boxing will not
be a sanctioned sport in the Olym
pic Games until the year
2012. However, between now and then, if she keeps going
strong, Mendez could rise to great heights in international
boxing.
“I have been boxing
here (Phoenixville) for nine or 10 months,” Mendez said
Tuesday afternoon during her regular workout. “Before
that, I was in boxing for four years in
Reading
. I wanted to come to
Phoenixville to do something new and get more learning from
people.”
The 5-foot-4 Mendez
currently weighs 144 pounds. She normally fights at 140
pounds, but was at 145 for the tournament.
Mendez has never played
any of the other sports young ladies normally get involved
in. She developed an interest in boxing through her sister,
Christina.
“I said I could do
it,” Mendez said. “I kept on with it and she just
quit.”
Her favorite punch is a
straight right hand. Thus far, she has used it adeptly in
some big encounters in the ring. She aspires to continue her
success and to continue to travel to various places to box,
which these tournaments allow her to do.
Mendez is the first
Reading
female boxer to reach a
national fight. She is also the first Phoenixville PAL
fighter to earn a Junior Olympics regional diadem since Mike
Molina did so with the boys a number of years ago.
She is also following in
the footsteps of “Lighning” Harry Joe Yorgey, a junior
middleweight, and southpaw Jules “The Ghost” Blackwell,
a featherweight, who have graduated to professional careers
after starting in the Phoenixville PAL boxing program. Not
to mention Ryan Carson, Julio Berry and the other top
amateur males.
Mendez is a quiet girl
who simply lets her fists fly and do the talking for her.
“Sometimes I am quiet,
but sometimes I can talk,” she said. “I talk if I know
you.”
Sharline’s nickname is
fittingly “Shy.” She even has a tattoo on the back of
her right shoulder with two boxing gloves to prove it. She
spars with Blackwell, who likes to refer to Mendez as
“Tinker Bell.”
“The men are an
inspiration for me,” Mendez said. “I spar with Jules. He
hits hard. I run a lot, but I don’t lift (weights).”
The rest of the time in
her busy young life is spent attending classes and doing
homework, not to mention eating, sleeping and doing her
boxing training.
“She also has chores at
home,” Carlos Mendez offered.
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