Last Saturday, a team from the SEMO Judo Club headed to College Station, Texas for the National Collegiate Judo Championships and brought back home four medals as well as a team trophy.
Four members of the Judo Club went to the championship hosted by Texas A&M University. The tournament was divided into four categories: Novice Female, Novice Male, Elite Female and Elite Male.
Tyler King and Ko Tabata fought in the under 66 kg division and won a silver and bronze medal, respectively, in the Elite Male category. The team also got third place in this category.
King is a senior at Southeast studying English and Film. He has been practicing judo for the past three years and is a brown belt. Because of his participation at the collegiate, he is now the only member of the SEMO club to be internationally ranked. Not only does he practice judo but he is also a Missouri state champion in jiujitsu. He fought two matches during last weekend’s tournament.
“I won the first one pretty heavy handedly and the second one was a fight so it worked out. At least I didn’t get wrecked,” King told KRCU.
Tabata is an International Business senior who comes from Japan. He has been doing judo in the club for the three and a half years and is a brown belt.
Justin Archambo and Bobbie Jo Ridenhour both fought in the Novice category. Archambo won a bronze medal in the under 100 kg division while Ridenhour won a silver medal in the under 48 kg division.
Archambo has been practicing judo for two years with the Semo Judo Club. He is a senior majoring in High School Science Education at Southeast and fought three matches last weekend.
“I was a little nervous and it got even worse before my first match, and I lost my first two, and then I won my third,” Archambo said.
King, Tabata and Archambo already participated in a national championship in Iowa last year and Archambo brought back a bronze medal in the Novice division.
Bobbie Jo Ridenhour has been doing judo at SEMO for about 10 months now. She is a senior at Southeast and studies Exercise Science with an emphasis on Dietetics. She had four matches at the tournament and won two of them. She is a green belt and this silver medal is her first one.
“We had a few good practices before we went so I was feeling okay but I don’t think you ever feel completely ready, you can always learn more and do more but I think it ended up great,” Ridenhour said.
The SEMO Judo Club is run by Randall Rhodes and meets three times a week at the South Recreation Center on Southeast campus. Their practice room is funded by the Missouri Department of Public Safety, the mat they practice on being funded by a Delinquency Prevention grant. All members of the club have to be Southeast students.
“It’s a good club,” King said. “It seems to be getting better all the time.”