Liberty University Club Sports Athletics
Men, women earn silver at Pan Am University Championships
10/25/2015 12:00:00 AM | Taekwondo
It was a banner weekend for the 18 members of Liberty University's men's and women's tae kwon do teams who competed at Saturday's and Sunday's Pan American University Championships in West Point, N.Y.
A total of 180 athletes participated in the two-day event and both the Flames and Lady Flames placed second to the host United States Military Academy in the team competition, which gave teams seven points for gold-medal performances, three points for silver, and one point for bronze.
"We came home with our first hardware from a championship tournament," Liberty Head Coach Tom Childress said. "We don't have a display case to put them in, but we received two very nice plaques from the Pan American Taekwondo Union."
Jonathan Healy, one of Liberty's two champions at last spring's National Collegiate Taekwondo Association (NCAT) Championships in Delaware, repeated that feat at this event, capturing a gold medal in the men's heavyweight black belt division. With the win, the sophomore from Houston enrolled in Liberty's online program will represent the United States at the next Pan Am Games, set for July 26-Aug. 11 in Lima, Peru.
"Jonathan is now an official member of Team USA, and he is right on time in his training schedule to make a possible bid to the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, Japan," Childress said.
Liberty also got gold medal performances from freshman Thomas Siff (heavyweight) and sophomores Katy Peterson (middleweight) and Helen Wood (heavyweight) in the red belt division and sophomore Tykeah Henderson — the Lady Flames' yellow belt champion at the NCAT event — in the green belt heavyweight class. Wood defeated freshman teammate Rebecca Arocho in Sunday's heavyweight final.
Childress said there were 89 black belt competitors with the rest competing in a variety of color divisions.
Pan Am is made up of 44 member nations that include, North America (United States, Mexico, and Canada), Central America (seven member nations), the Caribbean region (22), and South America (12).
The field would have been larger, but several competitors opted to go to an open tournament hosted by Trinidad and Togago instead. Matt Gallagher, another sophomore online student, from Stafford, Va., who competed in that event in the Caribbean last week, arrived at West Point in time to represent Liberty. He placed third in the middleweight black belt division.
Flames sophomore Michael Personius also earned a bronze medal in the men's black belt heavyweight class while Lady Flames sophomore Moriah Martin placed third in the women's black belt lightweight competition.
Junior Becky Cook placed second in the women's green belt heavyweight division while the Lady Flames also got bronze medal showings from Sarah-Ruth Matthews, a freshman from Ghana, in the white/yellow belt flyweight class, senior Leah Deaton in the green belt lightweight division, and junior Caitlin Gallagher in the white/yellow belt lightweight competition.
On the men's side, junior Isaiah Handog (middleweight white/yellow belt) and freshmen William Parker (lightweight red belt) and Taylor Rutledge (heavyweight white/yellow belt) also placed third.
On Friday, athletes from Liberty and Rutgers competed along with their hosts at the West Point Invitational and Childress said the NCAA sanctioning body considering adding the sport at the Division I level was "complimentary of what they observed."
By Ted Allen/Staff Writer
