NMIVA readies for 2005 Mini Games

With the recent resurgence of the sport of volleyball onto the Saipan sports scene, the Northern Marianas Islands Volleyball Association was formed to better organize the local bumpers, setters, and spikers so that they may send a qualified team to compete in the 2005 South Pacific Mini Games in Palau this July.

Recently they announced the criteria for selecting members for the CNMI team for the two-person outdoor competition. Each of the players will be chosen based upon points accumulated in two-person beach volleyball competition during events that followed the 2003 South Pacific Games in Suva, Fiji—namely the 2004 Marianas Cup last February and the Seaside Grille Beach Volleyball Tournament last June.

The current frontrunner in the men’s pool is Kitinan Intharaluk, who has twice as many points than his closest competitors, Chris Nelson and Donn Dunlop. The race is much closer in the women’s pool, as only two points separate Milli Saiki and Laurie Peterka in the top spots from the rest of the pack.

As the date for the summer games creeps ever closer, aspiring CNMI volleyball players will have additional opportunities to make their case to travel to Palau in July. NMIVA will be putting on a number of dual-purpose tournaments in the next few weeks designed to serve as a qualification aid and as a tool for raising the necessary funds to send the team to the Mini Games.

The first event gets underway this weekend, as organizers have put together the first volleyball-athon this Sunday, Jan. 23 at the Pacific Islands Club for the men, and the following week on Sunday, Jan. 30, at the PIC for the women.

NMIVA will continue their efforts to put the fun in fundraising on Sunday, Feb. 6, with another men’s tournament at the Hyatt Regency Saipan, and a week later, on Sunday, Feb. 13 for the women at the PIC.

The courts at the Hyatt will roar back to action the following week, as there will be a two-day event on Saturday, Feb. 19, and Sunday, Feb. 20, as well.

While the prices for the Hyatt qualifiers have not yet been released, the events at the PIC will be $7 for NMIVA members and $12 for non-members.

All of the two-player tournaments will be played in a double-elimination format. Registration starts at 9am with pool play beginning at 10am. Anyone intending on playing in the Mini Games should be entered, but the tournaments are open to anyone interested in partaking in the beachside events.

According to NMIVA secretary Steve Nguyen, all of the money collected from these games will help pay for part of the cost for sending a men’s and women’s teams to compete in Palau this July, but the members will still have a long way to go.

Players must team up together by March 1, and the combination of their individual points will determine whether or not they will be the CNMI representative at the Mini Games this summer.

The aim of NMIVA is to have the players find their prospective teammates as soon as possible and compete together in the qualifying events. At the very least, they hope to have the top players come together after the qualifiers and join up for the biggest two-person beach volleyball event of the year—2005 Marianas Cup.

Since NMIVA’s inception on Dec. 6, 2004, the organization has been ironing out the wrinkles that are a part of any fledgling association, and have been making progress both on and off the courts.

While Nguyen and treasurer Nan Intharaluk have been working behind the scenes to handle all of the financial concerns of the group, president Mark McDonald and vice-president Taula Peter have been helping to keep the association traveling in the right direction.