Miguel Contreras fended off another young, hungry, unbeaten boxer Tuesday night in Las Vegas.

The 22-year-old Contreras was effective enough to deal Rolando Vargas his first professional loss, a unanimous decision in a six-round junior welterweight bout. Judges Julie Lederman, Patricia Morse Jarman and Glenn Trowbridge scored the fight the same, 58-56, for the Bakersfield, California native.

The judges preferred Contreras’ activity and accuracy against an aggressive Vargas (5-1, 5 KOs). Milwaukee’s Vargas also landed his fair share of flush punches in their very competitive bout on the Andrew Moloney-Joshua Franco undercard at MGM Grand Conference Center.

Contreras improved to 11-0 (6 KOs).

Vargas’ left hook nailed Contreras with 1:10 to go in the sixth round. Contreras connected with a straight right to Vargas’ head, and then a right to Vargas’ body toward the end of the final round.

Vargas’ straight right hand backed up Contreras 20 seconds into the fifth round. A right uppercut by Contreras connected with just over two minutes to go in the fifth.

Vargas’ counter left hook caught Contreras late in the fifth round.

An overhand right by Vargas landed in the final minute of the fourth round, as did one of his left hooks several seconds later.

Contreras clipped Vargas with a straight hand and quickly slipped Vargas’ counter right hand around the midway mark of the third round. An accidental clash of heads caused a cut around Vargas’ right eye in the third round as well.

Contreras connected with several right hands in the first half of the second round. Vargas’ overhand right landed just after the halfway mark of that second round.

Vargas also landed a counter left hand in the final minute of the second round.

Vargas caught Contreras with a counter left just before the midway point of the opening round. Both boxers landed during an exchange with about a minute to go in the first round.

Once of Contreras’ punches drew blood from Vargas’ nose during the first round. 

Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.