Jins from different schools compete in the Philippine Taekwondo League-Cebu tournament at SM City Consolacion. (CDN PHOTO/RABBONI BORBON)
Taekwondo jins from the University of San Carlos (USC) men’s seniors team rallied past fighters from the University of Cebu–Main (UC-Main) and booked a gold medal match in the Philippine Taekwondo League-Cebu tournament last Sunday at SM City Consolacion.
The Warriors survived the Webmasters, 42-36, before dismantling the University of the Visayas (UV) Green Lancers, 62-28, to remain undefeated in the school-based round-robin tournament.
USC will face the second-best finishing team of either UC-Main or the University of San Jose-Recoletos (USJ-R) in their division’s finals slated on Nov. 22.
The Warriors coach Glenn Lava used his tall players in the latter part of the match to play defense against the smaller but more agile Webmasters to pull away from a 21-21 deadlock with jarring roundhouses and turning long kicks to win, 42-36. After the close match with UC, the Warriors dominated a hapless UV squad in the sixth day of the eight-day tournament.
UC-Main, however, rebounded from that loss by nipping UC-METC, 39-38, dimming their sister school’s chances of advancing to the tournament’s championship round.
In other results, UV succumbed twice in the women’s seniors division losing to both USC and UC, 63-49 and 33-23, respectively. The Lady Webmasters also turned back USJ-R, 29-20, in the same division.
USC’s cadet girls’ team also improved their win-loss record to 2-1 and clinched a spot in their division’s gold medal match together with UC after routing Cabangcalan National High School (CNHS), 50-19.
Fighting for championship glory in the finals on Nov. 22 are the cadet boys of the RPower Taekwondo Club and UC as well as USC and UC for both cadet girls’ and girl’s juniors.
Teams in the men’s seniors, women’s seniors, and boys’ juniors will still battle it out on Nov. 8 to determine their respective divisions’ gold medal pairings.