For forty Years Jose and Sharon Santamaria have been giving one of the best ars of tournaments in Texas. Originally connected to the Texas AOK then NBL and later in the 1990’s it became the premier tournament of the TNT organization. Jose and Sharon Santamaria were the principal founders of the TNT and one of the original AOK tournaments as well as producer of a premier tournament in Texas for four decades. Having moved from Austin to the Dallas area in 2005, it has found a new home in the cradle of Texas sports karate.
This years 2006 Masters was held at the McMillan Junior High School in Wylie Texas on April 29th. One of my favorite tournaments in Texas is The Masters. It has long been an event were great competitors from all over Texas and the surrounding states come to cut their teeth on tough competition. This years masters was attended by several top competition schools and Teams in Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana.
Two of the stars of the event were junior champions Sage and Colby Northcutt of Katy Texas. These two train with top champions from all over. Mark Northcutt, Sage and Colby’s father has for some time spent whatever it takes to give his kids the ultimate advantage. Other Junior black belt Champions were Jacob Holguin, Jordan Marcotte, Mike Guthrie, Noah Jones, Brittan Kabela.
Standing out in junior sparring is up and coming national champion, Zachary Blundell. I have watched this junior evolve from a basic under belt competitor to star quality in all his black belt divisions and I think you’ll hear his name in the future champions category at more events. Other junior sparring champions were Samantha Fields, James Davidson, Caulin Landenberg and of course some of the already mentioned forms champions.
Adult black belt forms champions included Johnnie Murphy who took home an amazing nine first places. Alanzo Ruiz, Cliff Dulehay and Donnie Dempewolf were also champions in the adult forms divisions. A sparring champions who stood out were Adam Longoria, Sean Roberts, Derrick Wilson, Janice Silva and Louis Jimenez.
The adult black belt sparring grand championship ended up being a showdown between world champion Adam Longoria and Sean Roberts son of world champion Norman Roberts. The fight started out as a quick and furious attempt by both fighters to make fast work out of the other. It soon became apparent both fighters were not quitting. The smaller Adam Longoria skillfully launched aggressive blitzes in an attempt to counter the taller Sean Roberts leg skills and reach. Sean went after Adam with a series of techniques to set up scoring attacks. Adam successfully managed to counter Sean’s tactics and kept on even par with Sean. Finally as time ran out the score was tied at five to five. Then after several final point attempts Sean pulled out the win with an all out blitz that ended up giving him the Masters Point sparring championship and ending the 2006 Masters National Karate Championship.
