Kingdom Boxing Club: Junior featherweight Jake Berchtenbreiter wins as tough training regime pays off

This was Kirkcaldy club ace Berchtenbreiter’s first fight since winning his individual contest and the ‘Best Boxer’ award at Kingdom’s annual show at Pettycur in November.

Months of hard training followed that outing for the Kingdom lad, and this showed in a fantastic, well matched fight against Usher, both boxers being the same age and having similar records.

For three rounds the fight swung one way then the other, Berchtenbreiter’s strength shining through as he came out on top in most of the exchanges. But his opponent just kept coming forward, with Berchtenbreiter’s training paying off as both boxers gave it their all until the final bell.

In front of the loud, partisan crowd in support of the home lad it was the Kingdom boxer who deservedly had his hand raised by the referee, winning by a unanimous decision on all of the five ringside judges’ scorecards.

Meanwhile, Kingdom’s light-welterweight junior boxer DJ Cathie is in action this Saturday at Beath Boxing Club’s Show at the Glen Pavillion, Pittencrieff Park, Dunfermline against Cowdenbeath’s Aiden Morrison.

The match-up was made over a month ago so Cathie has been working hard in preparation for it.

Also keeping active is Kingdom boxer Ryan Gray who has been combining his boxing training and roadwork to help beat his personal best running records.

At the end of last month he finished first out of 182 runners in the 5K Kirkcaldy Parkrun at the Beveridge Park in a time of 18mins 47secs.

On Sunday Ryan took part in the Loch Leven Half Marathon, finishing an impressive 24th out of 760 runners in a time of 1hr 23mins 24secs.

He has excelled when keeping up the hard work and achieving some great times.

Kingdom secretary George Forrester said: “Hopefully we’ll get Ryan back in the boxing ring some time as he keeps running away and none of us can catch him!”