By Anne Halliwell

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Shelby Williams and Vanessa Triplett faced off in the last bout of Alpha Delta Pi and Sigma Chi’s Main Event.

In the red corner, Triplett, a member of Chi Omega, shook out her shoulders before engaging her opponent.

Williams’ Kappa Alpha Theta sisters cheered her on from raised walkways leading to the ring.

“They are the most supportive people I have ever met,” Williams said. “They all came here with signs.”

Friday and Saturday’s Main Event was the first to feature female boxers.

After three rounds of punches and blocks, Triplett was declared the winner of the final bout.

“It’s weird, it was crazy,” Triplett said. “I just got in there and I was in the zone and everything kind of cleared out.”

Charles Jones, a USA Boxing supervisor who has judged Main Event for four years, said the final match came down to competitiveness, hits landed and “domination” of the match, since both of the women were equal in technique.

For Triplett, who works at BodyFit PUNCH and Williams, who works at TITLE Boxing, the Main Event represented the first chance to try competitive boxing.

“I’m used to punching a bag,” Triplett said. “Without (Alpha Delta Pi and Sigma Chi) I never would have had this experience.”

Williams said her first goal was to make her sorority proud.

“I’m not the kind of person to turn things down,” Williams said. “I was like, ‘Yeah, I’m doing that.’”

Williams, an international studies junior with a business minor, has been boxing as a workout for about a year. She began training for Main Event about two months before the competition.

Triplett, a marketing senior with a communications minor, said she’d heard rumors that girls would compete this year.

“I fought my fight and it went the way I wanted it to,” Triplett said.

Spectators watched from burgundy folding seats, though by the second round, most of the audience was on its feet.

The boxers continued until someone fell or the referee separated them. Occasionally, a match was called due to injury or rule infringement.

More points were awarded for blows to the body, said international studies senior Will McDaniel, who competed independently on Friday.

There was not a profit total available, Alpha Delta Pi philanthropy chair Hannah Maddox said, though the goal was to raise about $55,000.

Each night, 10 bouts were fought, Maddox said, between the 40 competitors. There were 12 sorority dance routines in between the bouts as well, to popular songs like “Problem” and “We Will Rock You.”

Delta Sigma Phi was declared the fraternity winner for its attendance, support of the boxers and money collected for DanceBlue and the Ronald McDonald House Charities of the Bluegrass in preparation for the event. Delta Delta Delta won in the sorority competition.

Cody Harp, a kinesthesiology sophomore, said he trained off and on for about a month, but kicked it up a notch with sparring and bag training in the last two weeks before Main Event.

The Beta Theta Pi member, who won his match in the usual three rounds, said he wanted to compete “for the experience, as well as just to represent Beta.”

Sumner Franklin, who won Saturday’s second bout for Sigma Chi, said that Main Event represents collaboration between Greek organizations more than it does competition.

The marketing sophomore joined Main Event last minute after members of his fraternity bowed out from injuries.

“We’re not fighting up there because we hate each other,” Franklin said. “We’re fighting to help out with philanthropy.”