Lamonakis defends championship

Winning the Golden Gloves is old hat to Sonya Lamonakis. She did it last year, topping Tanzee Daniel, a five-time champion in the amateur event.
Those in attendance, the 70 friends and family who bussed down for her bout from Lamonakis’ hometown of Turners Falls, Massachusetts and donned turquoise Team Lamonakis t-shirts, made her second straight title, albeit against a lesser opponent, an evening she won’t soon forget.
“It made me feel better having them here,” she said after dominating Shanell Mathes over the final three rounds to win the super heavyweight (189-pound plus) women’s division at The Theater at Madison Square Garden. “I love them.”
For just the second time, her mother, Sharon, saw her in the ring taking punishment, but doling out much more. “I was more nervous for them than I was for my fight,” Sonya Lamonakis said.
“I was going crazy,” Sharon Lamonakis said. “It was fantastic. It was a very nerve-wracking experience watching your child being hit, but she wanted this so badly. This is her passion. She loved it from the beginning.”
After measuring the quicker Mathes, 22, a customer service representative from Corona, Lamonakis controlled the final three rounds, flailing away and nearly gaining a knockout. Mixing in a punishing left hook with a razor-sharp right hand, she was never in any danger. “When I was hitting her and she was breathing heavy,” Lamonakis, 32, said, “I knew I was good. … I just started chopping her down.”
“It was a great feeling,” she said later between lengthy embraces with longtime friends and family members in a sea of turquoise. “A lot of dedication and hard work went into it.”
A sixth-grade teacher at Crossroads Middle School on the Upper East Side, Lamonakis, who will turn pro at the end of the year, moved to Astoria and away from all her friends and family, a few years ago to develop her boxing career. “I was really upset [at the time], because I was afraid something bad was going to happen,” Sharon Lamonakis said.
Now, there is no such fear. “I’m very proud of her,” Sharon Lamonakis said. “She worked very hard.”