With University of Santo Tomas having virtually secured the title, it was up to the others to race for that runner-up finish. In the lone final without a Thomasian, Patricia Rosario of University of the East snared the gold medal in the women’s half middleweight division over University of the Philippines’ Kayla Amado, Thursday at the La Salle Greenhills St. Benilde Gym.
UST’s Trina Esguerra started the day with a win over Ateneo de Manila University’s Jasmine Cafe. Her teammate Ednorly San Andres followed suit after upending Angelica Recarro of De La Salle University. Andreanna Santos of DLSU completed the round one winners, who defeated Chloe Gorospe of UE.
In the quarterfinals, Amado dominated Santos, getting an ippon from two waza-ari to book her place in the semifinals. Yongco had earlier won in similar fashion against Esguerra to eliminate one Thomasian in gold medal contention. At the bottom half of the draw, San Andres pummelled Kara Gadong of Ateneo and moved on to the Final Four. Rosario then arranged her semifinals tiff with San Andres after stopping Jemimah Miranda of UP at the 3:21 mark of their contest.
Esguerra and Miranda won their respective repechage matches to move on to the bronze medal matches. Esguerra piled up the attack on Santos and scored five yuko, which was more than enough to reach the third-place playoff. On the other hand, Miranda scored an ippon at the 1:26 mark over Gadong to get a chance at the bronze medal.
In the semifinals, Amado and Rosario snuck a yuko each in their respective matches over Yongco and San Andres. The yuko was enough for them to arrange a gold medal final, which turned out to be the only one of such scenario in the whole tournament.
Esguerra went on to win the first bronze medal over her teammate San Andres; that salvaged some pride for the defending and eventual champions in this particular division. Yongco ended her quiet UAAP career for Adamson with the other bronze medal.
https://youtu.be/1XePVh1c_Mc
In the Final, Rosario and Amado attempted to attack, but both judoka were on their guard. A yuko at the 1:27 mark of the gold medal bout was enough for the veteran Rosario to take the title over the rookie Amado.
