While the summer is usually downtime for high school students, this summer is anything but for area fighter Zion Hensley.
Hensley has multiple fights scheduled for the summer months, including another international trip and the Junior Olympics.
First up, however, is a hometown bout on Saturday against Jenika Penick, as part of the No Bark. All Bite: Summer Showdown event hosted by the East Side Bulldogs. Hensley and Penick fought last year in May, when Hensley earned a unanimous-decision victory.
This rematch will serve as a great kickoff for a long summer.
“I know that she likes to use the ring a lot, which is why I’m fighting this girl,” Hensley said. “In nationals, a lot of the girls use the ring a lot, and I’m always the shorter one. This girl likes to use the ring a lot, so it’s gonna really spare me for nationals.”
Hensley isn’t going to complain about fighting in front of a home crowd again either. Especially fighting less than a month removed from her last local fight, a unanimous decision victory against Hazel Franko.
Saturday’s fight will serve as a full-circle moment for the young fighter. When she first began boxing nearly a decade ago, one of the first people she met was cruiserweight and Youngstown native Darnell Boone. Boone will be escorting Hensley to the ring before Saturday’s bout.
“It feels amazing, especially having two in a row, because usually this is more of a once-in-a-while type of thing,” Hensley said of fighting in the Mahoning Valley again. “I’m so ecstatic. The walkout is going to be crazy.”
Not long after her hometown fight, Hensley is competing in the 2026 USA Boxing Junior Olympics & Summer Festival held in Wichita, Kansas.
When she’s not training for an upcoming match or doing schoolwork, Hensley has been training young aspiring boxers in her craft.
“I love it,” she said. “It’s really, really fun. Especially because I feel like a lot of them look up to me and they want to learn stuff from me, so I want to give it back to them, so they know some stuff that I didn’t know when I was eight years old when I first started.”
Hensley and her father have been involved in restoring an old gym on the north side of Youngstown alongside Ohio Urban Renaissance.
The gym has some history, as Youngstown natives Jeff Lampkin and Earnie Shavers used it to train.
“It feels really special, because there’s been world champions in here,” Hensley said. “I hope to be a part of history too, like so many other fighters right here.”
Their goal is to get it sanctioned as a USA Boxing gym.
Hensley is also heading south of the border again this year for the Reinas del Semidesierto. Loosely translated as “Queens of the Semi-Desert.”
Hensley is booked for four fights, including the headlining bout against Maria Estrada, one of Mexico’s top amateurs, nicknamed “La Avispita” or “the wasp.” The event features fighters from Brazil, Togo, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Canada.
Saturday’s bout is scheduled to begin at 5:30 p.m. at the Austintown Athletic Center. Doors open at 4:30 p.m.
Also competing on Saturday is 16-year-old O’Mari Garner. Garner is a Chaney student who is also competing in the Junior Olympics later this month. Garner competes in the 125-pound youth division. His home gym, East Side Bulldogs, is hosting Saturday’s event.
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