Beach v-ball duo settles for bronze

HONIARA, Solomon Islands—Logan Mister and Andrew Johnson didn’t get the gold medal they were hoping for in beach volleyball, but bagged the bronze and last medal for Team NMI in the 2023 Pacific Games last Friday night at the SIFF Academy.

The duo silenced home team Solomon Islands and the crowd after two straight and consistent sets, 21-13, 21-15, to win the 13th and last medal for the NMI. Gold went to Australia and Tuvalu took silver.

At the end of the Games yesterday, NMI’s medal count stood at 13—5 gold, 1 silver, and 7 bronzes.

The NMI duo had the upper hand throughout the game as Solomons’ Ray Quan and Tam Teriba couldn’t reply to most of Mister’s kills and Johnson’s well-placed returns.

The first set came and went swiftly as the home team went eight straight unanswered points and tried their hardest to put up a better fight in the second set.

There was a brief moment in the second set where they were tied in the early points of the game, and Solomons even took the lead, 10-9, but Mister and Johnson used their communication, faster attacks, and longer limbs to their advantage to hold Solomons to just 15 points and secure the bronze medal.

Mister and Johnson were perfect in pool play after they defeated Palau, Tonga, and rival Vanuatu, but had a tough draw and came up short of a gold medal run after they fell to Australia’s Ben Hood and D’Artagnan Potts in the quarterfinals last Thursday.

Johnson said of their bronze medal, “We really wanted to go for gold, but bronze is good. It definitely showed us that we were able to beat a lot of the teams that were in this tournament. We just got to train more, get stronger, and be ready for Australia next time.”

On their game against Australia, Johnson said, “They were just playing well. They didn’t make too many errors, while we were not really on our game—we were making errors and it was just kind of a tough day for us.” He added that they thought they were able to beat them because they scrimmaged against them before the tourney started. “They had weaknesses that we were trying to target but during the actual match, those weaknesses weren’t shown as much as in the scrimmage.”

As for their game against the Solomons, Johnson said, “We felt a lot more confident. They’re a really good team, so props to them for making it so far. But we were able to target one of their players and kind of just go after him, play our consistent game, and get the win.”

Mister said he felt pride on winning the last medal for Team NMI. “We came here late, and some people didn’t even know who we were, but I guess now they kind of do… we’re just happy to place.”

The 27-year-old Johnson also said it felt great representing the NMI. “We felt very proud representing home. We’ll continue doing that moving forward. We’re also hoping to play in FIVB events that aren’t necessarily associated with Pacific Games or Pacific Mini Games, things like Futures Events, maybe some Challenge Events and just try to work our way up the international ladder.”

NMI beach volleyball head coach Tyce Mister said, “just very proud of our team and the hard work they put in for this to get here. Looking forward to more tournaments.”

Team manager Chris Nelson, for his part said, “yes, very proud. I think the goal coming in here was to play that Vanuatu team again. It was the same team and players [from the 2022 Northern Marianas Pacific Mini Games] and to get that result—to be able to play them and win was sort of a medal game right there even if it came a little early in the tournament. So, now the goal is to be beat the continent of Australia.”

Logan Mister left last Saturday morning, while Johnson flew on the charter flight back to Saipan with the team.

Team NMI chef de mission Nick Gross said after the boys’ medal, “congrats on our final medal of the Games! I’m proud of our team and all our accomplishments.”

For the va’a crew, they finished their races last Friday with a V12 24km long distance event at DC Park.

The men’s team came in at 2:43.01 and the women’s team time was 2:46.40. They went up against some of the best paddlers in the South Pacific—Tahiti, New Caledonia, Fiji, Solomon Islands, Wallis and Futuna, Samoa, Papua New Guinea, Palau, and Guam.