Reilly Struggles to Win Decision in Boxing Trials

When the horn sounded to end his bout with Patrick Byrd, Pepe Reilly, a welterweight from Glendale, looked skyward, as if asking for help.

It sure looked like he needed some.

Many of the 3,205 in the Worcester Centrum on Wednesday night thought they had just seen the first notable upset of the U. S. Olympic team boxing trials.

Not quite. Reilly, the welterweight favorite, won a 3-2 opening-round decision. Three judges gave it to Reilly by scores of 59-58, 59-58 and 59-57. Byrd, of Flint, Mich., got the votes of two judges, each by 59-58.

As the announcer read off the result in the quiet arena, Reilly’s stepfather, Fred Reilly, paced nervously at ringside, staring at the floor. The boxer raised a limp, right hand in relief, as if to say: “Get me out of here.”

Later, in the interview room, Reilly said he never got off the dime against Byrd, a tall, awkward left-hander whom Reilly had beaten in their only previous meeting.

“I was terrible and I don’t know why,” he said. “It was the toughest bout I’ve had in several years. I can’t remember the last time I won a 3-2 bout. I beat this guy in the U.S. championships (which Reilly won, in 1991) over a year ago and didn’t have nearly this much trouble.”

The fight was probably the slowest-paced of the 23 bouts contested in two rings Wednesday. Reilly and Byrd spent most of their engagement sizing up each other, trading tame jabs that rarely landed. But Reilly rocked Byrd with five seconds left in the first round with a solid left hook to the head.

Reilly nailed him again midway through the third with a double left hook to the ribs and a hook to the chin. Referee Lyle Aklestad deducted a point from Byrd for holding shortly after that then, 10 seconds later, deducted a point from Reilly for the same infraction.

“I can’t explain it, my body. . . . I just couldn’t get it to move,” Reilly said. “I was very tight. I guess his style had something to do with it, but I wasn’t happy with myself.

“At the bell (a horn, actually) I wasn’t sure I’d won. I thought to myself: ‘I don’t know. I hope I won, but it was close.’ ”

Reilly, 20, said he thought he hurt Byrd with a left uppercut that caught him flush on the chin late in the final round. He also said he wouldn’t be surprised if he wound up facing Byrd, son of Olympic boxing Coach Joe Byrd, at the Olympic team boxoffs in Phoenix, June 26-28.

But first he will meet Tarick Salmaci of Dearborn, Mich., in Friday’s trials semifinals. Salmaci advanced with a 5-0 decision over Ronnie Johnson of Ft. Campbell, Ky.

Olympic trials champions don’t automatically qualify for the Olympic team. In this case, they must defeat their “most worthy opponents” once in Phoenix to make the trip to Barcelona. If their opponents beat them twice in Phoenix, the “most worthy opponents” make the Olympic team.

So perhaps for a few seconds Wednesday night, Reilly might have thought he had stumbled across another detour on the long road back from a nightmarish 1991. After he won the national championship last year, he tested positive for steroid use and was slapped with a nine-month suspension.

The ban prevented him from competing in the U.S. championships last March, in which he surely would have qualified for these trials. Instead, he qualified by winning the national Golden Gloves title in Chicago last month.