The first day of the 2014 American Nationals belonged to local talents.
After winning their respective division, JT Torres (mediumweight) and Keenan Cornelius (meadium-heavy) signed in for the open class and had to do only one fight to get to the final.
Keenan faced Nathan Mendelsohn first and quickly put his worm guard to work.
After a few minutes of trying, he finally managed to set up an armbar that left Nathan no other option but to tap.
The other semifinal also gathered two fellow Americans; JT and Elliot Kelly.
Keenan’s teammate at Atos San Diego, JT also went for the submission and squeezed Kelly’s neck to make it to the final.
The placing in the podium was decided by the toss of a quarter, done by the ring coordinator under the eyes of JT, Keenan and André Galvão.
JT called tails and won the right for the first place.
In the female open class division, Mackenzie Dern beat the exhaustion of a recent plane ride from Australia to choke Chelsea Donner for the gold.
In the other black belt divisions, the results were as follows:
Caio Terra outscored Fabio Passos 6(4)-6(1) on advantages for the lightfeather gold medal.
In the featherweight final Vitor Paschoal caught Kail Bosque with a bow and arrow choke.
In the lightweight final, Osvaldo Moizinho took gold after Andris Brunovskis was DQed for knee reaping.
In the middleweight, JT Torres caught Francisco Iturralde with clock choke to win gold.
In the mediumheavy final, Keenan Cornelius was unable to finish Eduardo Telles but won 9-0 on advantages.
In the heavyweight, Lucas Rocha played safe to outscore Elliot Kelly 4-2 and secure the first place.
In the superheavy, Felipe Bueno caught Dylan Dearborn’s neck from the back to win the gold medal.
In the ultraheavy division, Carlos Farias outscored Thiago Reinaldo 2(2)-2(1) to win the gold medal.
In the female featherweight division, Mackenzie Dern beat Chelsea Donner with a triangle for the gold medal.
In the teams competition, the standings were:
1 – Gracie Barra – 217
2 – Atos Jiu-Jitsu – 195
3 – Alliance – 174
4 – Brazilian Top Team – 120
5 – Cleber Jiu Jitsu – 101
6 – Nova União – 93
7 – Caio Terra Association – 92
8 – Ribeiro Jiu-Jitsu – 84
9 – Gracie Humaita – 69
10 – BJJ Revolution Team – 66
Here’s a photo gallery of the Saturday.
For the full results, go to ibjjf.com
