Topic: News: LSUS freshman Adams wins men's event at national meet

[Janet Beckham]

http://www.shreveporttimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060812/SPORTS/608120376/1001/SPORTS

LSUS freshman Adams wins men's event at national meet
August 12, 2006
By Scott Ferrell
sferrell@gannett.com


LSUS freshman Aaron Adams ended his first week at the school by meeting the chancellor Friday -- on the medals stand at the USA Weightlifting National Championships.

Adams, who comes to LSUS from Vineland, N.J., won the men's 62 Kg weight class with lifts of 108.0 in the snatch, 138.0 in the clean and jerk for a 246.0 total. It was enough to land his meeting with LSUS chancellor Vincent Marsala.

 
"It was the first time I'd ever met him," Adams said. "It was pretty cool."

Adams is attending LSUS in part because of the USA Weightlifting Development Center at LSUS and its director, Kyle Pierce.

"Kyle's a great coach and I look up to his workouts and the way he runs his gym," Adams said. "That was my first initiative. I got a little scholarship and the rest is history. I've wanted to come here since 2001. That was my first national championships. I've been here twice -- 2001 and 2004."

Adams won on a day when he wasn't at his best.

"I expected to do better actually," Adams said. "I didn't really have a great day. Jack Nicklaus said even when you have a bad day you've got to make sure the other guy has a worse day. I just had to hope."

Among local lifters on Friday, Shreveport's Michelle Sicard finished sixth in the 48Kg class. Sicard lifted 51.0 in the snatch and 65.0 in the clean and jerk for 116.0 total. Stacy Suyama won the event at 143.0 total.

"She did well," Pierce said. "She just dropped a body weight class so it will take time for her to get used to that body weight class."

Melanie Roach won the women's 53 KG weight class at 175.0 total. In the men's 56 Kg weight class, 34-year-old Chris Leroux returned to the top with a 204.0 total.

LSUS' Kendrick Farris will compete in the 85 Kg class today at 4 p.m. Also Jason Brown, an LSUS sophomore from Daytona Beach, Fla., will compete in the 77 Kg class. On Sunday, Monica Davis will also compete in the championships.

For now, though, Adams is the first LSUS student to medal.

"It's my first national championship. It was pretty cool," Adams said. "I've got the American Open in Alabama in December and I hope to do it again there."

And in the future?

"Olympics in 2008. I've got all the confidence in Kyle," Adams said. "That's why I came out here and I think he can help me do it and I can get a good education at the same time."

His first education came Friday when he met Marsala.

"He came up to me and said he was glad I was coming to school here. It's nice to know that he recognized me, " Marsala said.