All Stars BJJ Newcastle
On 03.03.25 (better late than never) Blaydon Grapplers took a team of 5 athletes to compete at the Newcastle edition of BJJ All Stars.
Liam Devine was Blaydon Grapplers star performer of the day controlling his matches with solid positional work and forcing his opponents to make tough decisions for the entirety of each match. Liam 3-0 🥇
Ethan Wilson just had a single match in the gi to take gold. Although he did go down a lot of points early he managed to escape a tough position and then pressured his opponent enough to bring the match back on the scoreboard and then eventually secure a submission.
In the NoGi Ethan had a comprehensive win in the semi final. In the final Ethan was leading on the scoreboard until late in the match, the referee deemed that Ethan was not advancing his position and awarded multiple passivity penalities against him which resulted in the match swinging in his opponents favour right at the end. Bit of a frustrating one but the team has definitely had similar decisions go for and against us on many occasions. Ethan 2-1 🥇🥈
David Poncer matched the same boyo twice Gi and NoGi. Dropping a close one in the Gi and winning a very close one in the NoGi. Very happy with the progress the young man is making. David 1-1 🥇🥈
Sam and Dan Ponente. These guys racked up so much experience at this comp and at the last one. They both made the finals Gi and NoGi but obviously had some kind of deal with each other to not show up the other one by taking home a gold medal.
Sam and Dan 8-4 🥈🥈🥈🥈
Super happy with how the team performed and represented themselves and the club. Big thanks also to Joe Ponente who got in the coaches chair for the afternoon matches.
Wins/ Losses 14-6 on the day. Most importantly the lads racked up good competition experience. On the next one…
Liam topping out in a strong division