Wichita’s Nico Hernandez wins unanimous decision to move ahead in Olympic boxing

Dominant second and third rounds by Wichita native Nico Hernandez helped him defeat Italy’s Manuel Cappai Saturday in a three-round preliminary match to open his Olympic quest for gold in the men’s light flyweight division.

Fighting at 108 pounds, Hernandez, 20, leaned on patience and stamina in outlasting the longer Cappai en route to a unanimous-decision victory. The judges’ scores were 30-27, 29-28 and 29-28.

“It’s definitely a good feeling,” Hernandez said. “I know Kansas and Wichita is definitely not known for boxing. I know I’m inspiring a lot of the young boxers. Kind of, where you’re from, you can do it. too.”

Hernandez’s next fight is Monday against Russia’s Vasilii Egorov, the tournament’s No. 2 seed, at 3:45 p.m. Central time.

Hernandez spent most of the first round defending and dodging punches from his 23-year-old Italian opponent, but landed a right hook in the last minute to earn a split of the round.

He turned the tides in the second round, throwing a near-equal amount of punches as Cappai, and landing just a couple more. He closed with a significant jab combination in the final 25 seconds to earn the round from all three judges.

Hernandez took over in the third round, connecting on a left hook that nearly knocked Cappai down, forcing the Italian into a corner of the ring. A fatigued Cappai recovered after dodging a subsequent punch, but couldn’t connect on any punches to match Hernandez.

“In the first round I was lunging in,” Hernandez said. “I went back to the corner and (Coach Billy Walsh) told me to use jabs and work my way in. I listened to him and I accomplished that.”

Cappai, who has fought in the 52 kg (114-pound) weight class before, said by the third round he was tired. Rio marks the second straight Summer Olympics that Cappai will head home after the first round.

“(Hernandez) had the cleaner punches in the second round,” Cappai said in Italian through an interpreter. “If I would have been able to keep the same rhythm as the first round, it would have been a better fight.”

“I figured he might be struggling a little more with his weight than me,” Hernandez said. “I worked my way in and I kept making my move. I figured he’d get tired sooner or later.”

Hernandez’s fight drew one of day’s biggest crowds in the 9,000-seat Barra Pavillion 6, located in Rio’s Barra da Tijuca neighborhood. The crowd of mostly Brazilian, Mexican, Italian and other South American and European fans on hand drowned out cheers of “U-S-A” from the roughly three-dozen American supporters cheering for the red-clad Hernandez, with arena-wide chants of “Italia,” in support of Cappai.

Hernandez said he wasn’t fazed.

“There’s pressure knowing everybody is back home watching me,” he said. “I didn’t want to lose in front of everybody, so that gave me motivation.”

“We’re hungry and strong. We want to be victorious and we want to change the way people look at USA boxing.”

This story was originally published August 6, 2016 at 3:52 PM with the headline "Wichita’s Nico Hernandez wins unanimous decision to move ahead in Olympic boxing."