×

Triton Taekwondo takes home three medals

AUSTIN, Tex. – The Iowa Central Taekwondo team had three medalists at the National Collegiate Taekwondo Championships held here recently on the campus of the University of Texas. This was the 44th annual event sanctioned by USA Taekwondo with over 460 athletes competing.

Male red belt middleweight Laurent Hill (sophomore) claimed a silver after becoming the fourth national champion in Iowa Central history last year. Brooke Waterbury (sophomore) earned a silver medal with her second place finish in women’s blue belt and Keilund Steinborn (sophomore) scored a bronze third place medal in men’s blue belt division.

Other Tritons competing were black belts Brittany Bendickson (sophomore) and Brandon Splawski (freshman), green belt Hannah Vaughn (freshman) and yellow belt Cameron Zolnosky (freshman).

Team awards were given based on the total number of gold, silver and bronze medals earned. The Tritons repeated their Top-13 team finish with over 125 colleges competing. All divisions compete against each other with no separation of size of the college/university.

“I am very proud of our student athletes and the program we have at Iowa Central,” head coach Justin Faiferlick said. F“or us to compete and consistently be in the Top-13 of all colleges is incredible. I am very happy on how hard this team worked during our season and offseason. Several of our athletes had the goal at the beginning of the season of being a national champion and they came close. Our three captains Brittany, Brandon and Laurent did an awesome job this year of keeping the team focused and practicing hard.”

The championships included poomsae and sparring competitions for color belts and black belts. All competitors will qualify to compete at the 2019 USA Taekwondo National Championships in their corresponding poomsae and/or sparring divisions. Collegiate black belt sparring and poomsae team trial divisions will serve as Team Trials for the 2019 U.S. National Collegiate team.

Newsletter

Today's breaking news and more in your inbox

I'm interested in (please check all that apply)
Are you a paying subscriber to the newspaper? *

Starting at $4.62/week.

Subscribe Today