De la Hoya Wins Easily, but Reilly Needs Help : Boxing trials: Southern California fighters advance. Griffin scores 5-0 decision.

Oscar de la Hoya of East Los Angeles cruised to a routine opening-night victory, and Pepe Reilly of Glendale barely advanced with a 3-2 decision on the opening night of the U.S. Olympic team boxing trials Wednesday night.

De la Hoya, the 1991 lightweight national champion and rated No. 2 in the world, is a solid favorite in the trials. He beat an overmatched Houston boxer, Lewis Wood, with a 5-0 verdict. But 15 minutes later, when the horn sounded to end welterweight Reilly’s match with Patrick Byrd, Reilly’s eyes turned skyward, as if asking for help.

The result was a 3-2 victory for the national Golden Gloves champion, but by narrow margins on all five scorecards.

De la Hoya and Reilly advanced to Friday’s semifinals, De la Hoya against Lupe Suazo of Tucson and Reilly against Tarick Salmaci of Dearborn, Mich.

Also winning Wednesday night, before about 3,205 in the 15,000-seat Worcester Centrum, was the only U.S. world champion in amateur boxing’s 12 weight classes--light-flyweight Eric Griffin of Broussard, La. He scored a 5-0 decision over Bradley Martinez of Ft. Huachuca, Ariz.

De la Hoya was up against an opponent who reached Worcester by winning last month’s western Olympic trials at Ft. Huachuca. The Garfield High graduate applied pressure on Wood in the opening seconds and never let up. Fifteen seconds into the bout, he hit his Houston opponent with left hooks to the ribs and chin.

After that, Wood never stopped backing up.

In contrast to the smooth, crackling quick De la Hoya, Wood seemed unpolished and slow. De la Hoya hurt the Houston boxer with repeated left hooks to the ribs. The closest scorecard of the judges had De la Hoya ahead, 60-55.

The trials got off to a rough start. USA Boxing’s keyboards for the judges and the cables for its new computerized scoring system disappeared Wednesday morning from the headquarters hotel, two blocks away. Until new equipment can be flown in, the federation said, pencils and scorecards will be used.

It seemed as if De la Hoya could have stopped Wood had he wanted to, and he implied later that that was the case.

“I could tell right away I was going to win, and when you know that, it’s always best to get the rounds in to maintain your conditioning, especially in a tournament,” he said.

“I felt great tonight, I was moving well, I had quickness and my conditioning was great. I wasn’t tired at all.”

Reilly survived by narrow margins on three of the five judges’ cards--58-57, 59-57 and 59-58. Two judges called it for Byrd, who is the son of Joe Byrd, Olympic team head coach, both by 59-58.

“I was terrible, and I don’t know why,” Reilly said. “It was the toughest bout I’ve had in several years. I can’t remember the last time I won a bout by a 3-2 score.”

Byrd, left-handed and using an awkward, deliberate style, kept Reilly off balance and missing for much of the bout, although the Glendale Hoover High product landed much the harder blows.

If Griffin makes the Olympic team, as expected, he might not have a tougher bout in Barcelona than he had Wednesday night. Martinez, from Ft. Huachuca, fought him tough for every minute of the three rounds.

Immediately afterward, Martinez said he thought the decision “could have gone either way” but later paid tribute to Griffin.

“He’s so tough,” he said, wiping a smear of blood from his cheek.

“The only two ways you can beat Eric are to back him up or box him at angles and make him miss. But he doesn’t let you. He throws so many punches and he never stops coming in on you.”