Enriquez, 2 others in pinweight semis

National pool member Jose Enriquez stood tough when it mattered to lead three others to the senior men’s pinweight semifinals yesterday at the start of the Samsung Best of the Best national taekwondo championships at the Glorietta Activity Center in Makati City.

Enriquez withstood the attacks of Ateneo’s Karym Laidan to win by superiority after they had battled to a 3-3 tie.

Enriquez will face former national jin Angelito Ong, who came back from a 1-3 deficit to nip Baguio’s Michael Albert Belo in one of the exciting matches in the week-long tourney organized by IMG and Philippine Taekwondo Association, sponsored by Samsung and supported by Accel and 103.5 K Lite.

The other pinweight semifinalists were Baguio’s Edward Buliyat, who blasted TBB’s Witt Valencia, 3-0, and UST’s Terrence Boteja, who toppled TUP’s Mirzam Madid, 3-0.

John-John Abratique, 1998 Asian Games fly bronze medalist, Kuala Lumpur SEA Games and 2001 World Cup bronze winner Dax Morfe and two other national pool members — fly Anthony Ong and bantam Arnold Valenzuela — and former RP jin Ronald Samijon also triumphed to gain quarterfinal slots.