Reilly Hits Stride After a Slow Start : Boxing: Glendale welterweight advances to final in Olympic team trials with a 36-21 victory but has cause for concern.

For the second time in as many bouts, Glendale welterweight Pepe Reilly came crawling out of the blocks. But Friday night, he finished like a tornado in advancing to a championship match in today’s finals of the U.S. Olympic boxing team trials at the Worcester Centrum.

He will meet Jesse Briseno of Kalamazoo, Mich., and fears another slow start could drop him out of the Olympic team picture.

“I’m a slow starter, and I don’t know why,” he said after pinning a 36-21 loss on Tarick Salmaci of Dearborn, Mich.

“Oscar (his gym buddy Oscar De La Hoya of East Los Angeles, who Friday also advanced to the championship round) has the same problem. I’ve tried everything. So has he.

“I try all kinds of different warm-ups before my bouts and I still can’t solve it.”

Reilly was slow and tentative in the first round against the awkward Salmaci. He countered successfully a few times and kept spearing Salmaci with his jab, but there was not much else.

He picked up the pace in the second round but still didn’t land any strong punches until he whacked Salmaci with a wicked left hook to the ribs midway through the round.

After that, he was on his way.

Throughout the third, having switched entirely to his power game, he blasted Salmaci all over the ring.

“It took me a round-and-a-half to get my range, but once I got into it, I felt pretty good,” he said. “I’ve got to solve this first-round problem. If I get to the Olympics, (a slow start will) really hurt me.”

In 10- and 12-round pro bouts, soft first rounds aren’t necessarily fatal. But in a close, competitive three-round amateur bout they can be critical.

Reilly’s championship match with Briseno this afternoon is the first of 12 weekend title bouts.

An all-Southland light-heavyweight match between Jeremy Williams of Long Beach and Montell Griffin of Midway City follows.

Briseno lost to Reilly in the national Golden Gloves championships in Chicago last month, but Reilly seemed concerned about his next opponent.

“He’s taller than I am, he’s got real long arms and he moves around a lot,” Reilly said. “It’s really hard to get to his body. We had a really close bout in Chicago.”

Reilly also started sluggishly Wednesday in his opening bout against Patrick Byrd of Flint, Mich., but rallied for a 3-2 decision.