After getting two penalties, Alfred Querubin of Ateneo de Manila University snuck past University of Santo Tomas’ Robert Quito to take the half middleweight gold, Thursday at the La Salle Greenhills St. Benilde Gym.
Quito booked his placed in the finals after surviving two rounds of competition. The UST veteran scored a waza-ari over Andro Cudao of De La Salle University in the quarterfinals. In the semifinals, Quito pulled an ippon victory against Paulo Amorin of the University of the Philippines. Cudao earlier dispatched Jan Bautista of Adamson University in the round of 16, while Amorin won over Harmon Tuazon of Ateneo via wazari-awasete-ippon (two waza-ari) in the quarterfinals.
At the bottom half of the draw, Querubin secured a chance at the gold after two dominant wins. In the quarterfinals, the Ateneo senior welcomed UP first-time player Kevin Tiongson to the UAAP with throw at the 2:05 mark. Querubin then followed this up with a victory over Vince David of De La Salle University after scoring a waza-ari, 1:45 left in the contest. Davis earlier won against Luis Benitez III of University of the East and Nikole Ong of UST.
Tuazon and Ong went on to win their respective repechage matches to reach the bronze medal matches. However, the two judoka suffered contrasting fates in the third-place playoffs. Ong went on to win over Amorin with an ippon at the 4:06 mark. Meanwhile, Tuazon lost to David in the other contest. David took the other bronze after scoring an ippon, 47 seconds into the battle.
In the finals match, Querubin was penalized for defensive posture, 43 seconds from the start. After being given another penalty, the Ateneo veteran tried to be more aggressive. With this stance, Quito was forced to defend and was eventually given two penalties. With match going threatening to go to a golden score round, Querubin attacked once more and after fending off the attack, Quito received another penalty. The time expired and Querubin took Ateneo’s third gold of the tournament.
