Morrow takes overall honors in
powerlifting competition

By By Ryan Satcher / staff writer
June 20, 2004
Powerlifting turned out to be a successful event in the State Games of Mississippi.
The event, held at Jeff Anderson Regional Medical Center, had around 30 competitors on Saturday afternoon.
"It went real well," said event commissioner Eddie Sorto. "There were not as many lifters as I had first expected but we had a lot of people pre-register."
A large portion of the field came from high school athletes including Pirate Powerlifting of Pearl which took home the gold in the team portion of the event.
"It turned out to be a pretty good meet," said Sorto. "We had a lot of high school kids which was good."
Joe Morrow came away with the Best Overall Lifter Award for the second consecutive year.
Morrow, an Amory native, finished the meet with 1,200 total pounds lifted to take the award which takes into account body size and the amount of weight lifted. Morrow also finished the meet with a gold medal in the full meet event for his weight class and age category.
The event was held at Anderson's for the second consecutive year. The new site has helped make the meet more enjoyable.
"It's an excellent place to have it," said Sorto. "I'm very pleased that we have it here and I thank Anderson's for letting us have it here. Hopefully, we can have it here in the future."
Michael Dowdy finished the afternoon with four gold medals by winning the teenage 1 category in the 114.5 class for squat, bench, deadlift and full meet events.
Nicholas Dowdy took home four golds in his weight and age category and Justin Mardis finished with three golds and a silver in his class.
Christopher Skinner took home gold in his class in the squat only and deadlift only events. Jay Gousset won gold in the deadlift only event.
Winning gold medals in the bench only event were: David Dale. Ryan Cormier, Clyde Gousset, Roger Bynum, Bill Dearman and John Rachal.
Full meet gold medal winners included: Matthew Mayerhoff, Chase Smith, Prentiss Bates, Brandon Pitts, Cameron Wilmoth, Blake Dyer, Michael Battenfield, Leon Seals, Floyd Knight, Derick Brannon, Chris Kelly, Ty Westbrook, Terrell Hobson, Torey McKenzie, Jim Battenfield, Jim Lyons, Jack Blendinger and Hugh Foster.