Diary Day 3: Torres one win away from Olympic Trials

Mission amateur boxer Isaac Torres is competing in USA Boxing’s Last Chance Qualifier in Cincinnati from July 4-9 for a chance to compete in the Olympic Trials later this month. Every day he will write about his experiences trying to make the Olympic Trials, as told to The Monitor.

— As told by Isaac Torres

CINCINNATI — It feels great. It feels good. We are three rounds away from making my dream come true, making the Olympic Trials.

We fight a guy from the Army (today). His name is Joe Perez from Fountain, Colo. He is aggressive. It is going to be another chess match just like it was (Wednesday).

I was up in the first round (Thursday) 7-5. After the second round, we were down 15-13. Going into the third round, my corner man Hylon Williams told me my opponent (Patrick Harris) is just looking for the right hand. All he had was a strong right hand.

My corner man told me, “Isaac, I need you to pivot to your right because he is going to miss with the right hand.” I said, “Alright.”

We started countering him a lot better and started moving to our right, and he would miss. I would counter with hard shots. I think what decided the fight was when I hurt him with a right overhand. I stunned him.

I was going for the kill. My killer-instinct kicked in. I started throwing hard shots. All he started doing was covering up. He started moving away from me. He was on the run. We started attacking a lot more and pulled out the fight, 22-21.