Chearino wins national boxing championship

Posted 2/13/14

Destiny Chearino’s coach, Brian Pennacchia, had mapped out a plan for her to become a national champion long before she really gave it much thought.

“I didn’t really foresee it,” said …

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Chearino wins national boxing championship

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Destiny Chearino’s coach, Brian Pennacchia, had mapped out a plan for her to become a national champion long before she really gave it much thought.

“I didn’t really foresee it,” said Chearino, a 22-year-old boxer and Warwick native. “My coach would always say to me, ‘First we’re going to do this, we’re going to fight this tournament, then we’re going to win that.’ I guess he had it figured out.”

Chearino figured it out too, and so did her opponents in the ring. As of Jan. 25, she’s the United States champion in the 141-pound light welterweight division thanks to four victories in five days at the USA National Boxing Championships in Spokane, Wash.

A doctoral student at the University of Rhode Island, Chearino was already an accomplished boxer before her showing last month.

Now though, she’s at another level entirely.

“It was awesome,” Chearino said. “It was probably the happiest moment in my life so far.”

Chearino won the title with a unanimous 3-0 decision over Jasmine Singh of Anaheim, Calif., in the gold medal match, the culmination of a grueling tournament that saw her fight more often in a short period of time than ever before.

Over the course of five days, Chearino won three unanimous decisions and also defeated Bertha Aracil – a fighter whom she had struggled against in the past – 2-1.

After having never even fought back-to-back days in her life, she was pushed to the limit.

“I was definitely dying afterwards,” Chearino said. “My whole body was sore. The second my last fight was over, that night I was in bed with a fever. My whole body just kind of shut down afterwards.”

The tournament was validation for Chearino, who came back to boxing in 2011 after taking a two-year hiatus due to a busy school schedule. She succeeded in her comeback, winning the New England Golden Gloves competition and qualifying for the national tournament last July, but her hopes of winning the crown were dashed by Aracil in the national championship bout.

The year before, Chearino had lost to Aracil at a fight in Lake Placid, N.Y. But the Golden Gloves loss stuck in her head.

“At the time it was definitely a tough loss,” Chearino said. “To be that close, I took it pretty hard.”

The next week, though, she was back in the gym. In November, she was fighting again in the New England Open in an attempt to qualify for the regional tournament. She won that fight, and then got a pass through regionals because there was no opponent in her weight class.

That sent her straight to Spokane, for another chance at a national championship. While the Golden Gloves is one of the country’s largest and most prestigious events in the boxing community, the USA National Boxing Championships are even bigger.

Chearino was one of 10 girls in her weight class vying for the title. The format was single elimination.

After winning her first fight fairly easily, Chearino was matched up with Aracil on Jan. 22, the second day of the competition. It wasn’t easy – as the split decision indicates – but when the scores were read it was Chearino who had the higher total.

She hadn’t won the title yet, but beating Aracil was a huge step and an even bigger personal accomplishment.

“It was more of a personal win than anything else,” Chearino said. “For myself to say, ‘I can beat her.’ It had been a struggle probably more mentally than anything else.”

Yet, from there she had to re-focus, with two more fights still standing between her and the title.

“We were only halfway there,” Chearino said. “We didn’t go all the way out there to win one significant fight and call it quits. We still had a job to do.”

Three days later, she was all the way there. She notched a convincing victory the next day and then did the same thing against Singh in the championship bout.

Chearino was free to celebrate as the 141-pound national champion.

“It was definitely kind of a whirlwind,” Chearino said.

Amazingly, she flew home the next day to Rhode Island and had to get ready for a fight the following Friday in Fall River. She won that one too, and that was free to think about the new possibilities for her boxing career.

By virtue of her win in Spokane, she’ll join Team USA and travel around the world competing in the coming year.

If everything falls into place and she keeps winning, the next step after that could be the trials for the 2016 Summer Olympics in Brazil.

“I would love (the Olympics to be next),” Chearino said. “It’s definitely a long-time goal.”

Chearino has already accomplished significantly more than she ever thought she would when Pennacchia outlined his plan for her to get to the top.

Now she believes too, and nothing seems too far out of reach.

“I’ll just see where it takes me,” she said.

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