The ring bell and the cheers of the crowd filled the auditorium as SF State boxer Jeremy Pawlowicz stepped into the ring for his fight.

Once the fighting started, Pawlowicz and his opponent were seen furiously throwing head shots at each other, spewing blood from their mouths and on to the judge’s table down below.

Pawlowicz was fighting on Labor Night, the second day of the 74th annual San Francisco Golden Gloves amateur boxing tournament. The tournament was held from March 30-April 2 at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium.

Before fighting in the Golden Gloves, Pawlowicz had been training for two years at the 3rd Street Gym in San Francisco. This was his first time fighting in the Golden Gloves.

“I run every day for a half hour and then box," Pawlowicz said. "I probably spend 10 to 15 hours a week boxing. Having the chance to fight in the Golden Gloves is a big deal to me because if I can win here, it will set the stage for bigger things down the road.”

Managing his boxing commitments and going to school full time has proven challenging for Pawlowicz.

"Currently, I am a junior, majoring in art with an emphasis on painting,” Pawlowicz said. “My schedule is psychotic. I have school all day long, then I go box afterwards and work on the weekends."

Pawlowicz said that he approaches his two different lives in their own separate ways. He does this by not letting them interact with each other.

“I mean you decide to study art, you are there and when you are boxing, you are in the boxing ring," said Pawlowicz. "They are two separate things. You just have to stay focused on either one.”

Boxing was something that Pawlowicz had thought about doing for a while, but he didn't get the chance to box until recently.

“One day, I was taking an English class at a junior college and it turned out that the teacher owned a gym, and I started talking with him and one thing led to another,” Pawlowicz said. “I started working out, I started slow. I liked it a lot. I liked everything about boxing. So the next step for me was to start competing.”

Pawlowicz worked closely with his trainer, Ireland native Simon Redmend, to get ready for the fight.

“You have to work closely with our trainer because when you are getting psyched for a fight, you want your trainer to have the same attitude,” Pawlowicz said. “You don’t have to worry about getting psyched for a fight, you just have to worry about staying calm. That’s the thing because your nerves will kill you.”

As he waited for his name to be announced over the loud speaker, Pawlowicz was sitting quietly among the audience. He was tuning out the crowd, the sounds of the fighting and instead focusing on what he wanted to accomplish once he got in the ring.

A common strategy for boxers in this tournament was to be aggressive and try to make their opponent step back into the ropes. At that point, they could land several punches while their opponent tried to protect themselves.

Suddenly, Pawlowicz's name was called and it was time to see if all his training and commitment would pay off in victory.

In the first round, Pawlowicz and his opponent, Boris Zeltsen, traded jabs. Both fighters missed more than they connected. In the second round, it was all Zeltsen as he landed several punches into Pawlowicz’s midsection, forcing Pawlowicz to backpedal. The final round seemed to belong to Pawlowicz as Zeltsen was on his heels and Pawlowicz got in several body shots.

The final ring bell was rung and the judges furiously wrote down their decision. As he waited for the decision to be read, Pawlowicz stood in the middle of the ring.

The ring announcer told the crowd that this fight was a split decision in favor of Zeltsen. Pawlowicz hung his head as he realized that his chance at boxing glory had just been brutally snatched away from him.

In the dressing room after the fight, a member of the training staff cut the taping off Pawlowicz's battered hands. While his hands were being taken care of, Pawlowicz leaned back in his chair and cursed the judge's decision to rule against him.

“Fuck yeah, it was terrible judging,” Pawlowicz said.

Leaving his lost behind him, Pawlowicz was back in the gym on Monday training for his next fight.