by Julia Richieri

ECTC Tournament Committee Member

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November 2, (Cambridge, MA) - The Eastern Collegiate Taekwondo Conference (ECTC) held its first tournament of the 2016-2017 year at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) on Saturday, October 15. At 466 competitors from 29 different schools, it was the largest MIT tournament to date.

 

 

The morning started off with Poomsae Competition. For the first time in the League, WTF-standard electronic Poomsae scoring was used to judge all Green Belts and above—a huge change from the scorecards used previously.  In the hugely competitive black belt divisions, the male medalists (here listed from first through fourth) were Andrew Hurd from Northeastern, Ryan Hyun from Dartmouth, Jonathan Price from Stony Brook University, and Dennis Kim from University of Michigan, while the female medalists were Josephine Wong from Cornell, Evangeline Tsai from Boston University, Elaine Lee from University of Pennsylvania, and Tam Nguyen from MIT.

 

As the Poomsae divisions completed, the sparring competition started.  There were many standout performances from both new and seasoned athletes across all divisions.  In the Men’s Advanced Sparring Division, the medalists included Cornell A1 (Jared Gurba, Kyosan Ku, Brian Wang), West Point A1 (Matt Galea, Jordan Nettles, Ziwei Peng), West Point A2 (Anthony Chargualaf, Ryan Castilla, David Kim), and University of Michigan A1 (Tenzan Araki, Miguel Mendoza, Kevin LaForest, Ezra Gans).  In Women’s Advanced Sparring Division, University of Michigan A1 (Anna Cheong, Atheerah Mohd Azmil, Cecilia Cozza) placed first, followed by West Point A1 (Natasha Chick, Nicole Nettles, Wonha Kim), MIT A1 (Tam Nguyen, Rachel Connick, Renee Zhao), and Cornell A1 (Lucy Wang, Hyunji Kim, Tiffany Zheng).  In our men’s intermediate division, West Point B1 (Will Xu, Ellis Valdez, Eli Eichenberger) placed first, followed by Tufts B1 (Jaydev Dave, Sanggyu Suh, Jared Gall, Pulkit Jain), University of Michigan B1 (Duncan Abbot, David Read, Josh Trate), and Cornell B1 (Daniel Veronese, Samuel Cantillo, Curtis Sumner).  MIT B1 (Nina Anwar, Ashley Wang, Samantha Amey-Gonzalez) won the Women’s Intermediate division followed by Columbia B1 (Primi Akhtar, Caitlin Wang, Tamara Maswoswe), Penn State B1 (Katie Smith, Kyle Aguila, Akeena Lofters), and Tufts B1 (Yennie Jun, Caroline Scheck, Kira Tomlinson).  Finally, in our Men’s Beginner division, Cornell C1 (Stephen Schmitt, Harrison David Fay, Orvill Delatorre) took first followed by New York University C1 (Ben Intarapuvasak, Diego Lorenzo, Salem Selim), University at Albany C1 (Mike Wilder, YoonSang Cheong, Wilson Li), and MIT C1 (Malivai Luce, Lawrence Lai, Joshua Murdock).  University of Albany C1 (Ashley Feldman, Mei Kimura, ChaeBean Kang) also won the Women’s Beginner group, with Rutgers C1 (Betty Kui, Sharon Liu, Caitlin Chasmar) in second, and BU C1 (Yoko Nakatani, Saiansha Panangipalli) and West Point C1 (Chloe Smith, Kayla Johnson, Sarah Juhn)in third.

 

In Division 1, Cornell took first place (379 points), West Point (272 points), the newest addition to this division, took second, MIT (261 points) came in third, and Tufts (114 points) in fourth.  Columbia (101 points) edged out Boston University (84 points) to take first place in Division 2, with Rutgers (66 points) in third and Penn State (40 points) in fourth.  University of Michigan (210 points) dominated Division 3, University at Albany (100 points) came in second, while Northeastern (51 points) came in third. Dartmouth (44 points) in third. The overall tournament winner was Cornell, followed by West Point and MIT.  

 

MIT Sport Taekwondo Club President Renee Chen comments, "The ECTC provides all aspects of competition in addition to a community where athletes can grow with each other. As a competitor, you see the same schools and same people at tournaments, and sooner or later, you become friends with these people. You watch each other progress and at the same time you push yourself to excel… The MIT tournament is always exciting because it brings the league together for the first time in the season. It's where I have the chance to see what my poomsae or sparring friends from other schools have been working on."

 

MIT Sport Taekwondo Club Head Coach Master Dan Chuang echoed Renee’s thoughts on the league.  "The ECTC competition experience is unique in that it gives students a chance to compete as part of team and not just as individual athletes.... The points assigned to poomsae in the team standing means that poomsae and sparring athletes alike are celebrated. Finally, we bring a cutting edge experience - networked tournament management, electronic body protectors and electronic poomsae scoring at an incredibly low cost to the students.  This season, I'm looking forward to seeing new rivalries and stars in the league emerge. Every year, I'm struck by how much individual competitors and teams improve and grow. This year looks to be the best to date!”