After spending all of the regular season scoring goals and chasing balls at the American Memorial Park, the Northern Mariana Islands Football Association Women\u2019s League moved to the Oleai Sports Complex for its championship tournament over the weekend.<\/p>\n
Whether they won or lost, all of the players agreed that the field conditions were the best that they\u2019ve seen since they started playing the world\u2019s most popular sport on Saipan and that they hope to call the Oleai oval home.<\/p>\n
Despite ending the year on a losing note, Saipan Grand Hotel Mamma Mia\u2019s captain Sarah Helbert was happy to share her feelings about the field after her contest. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe field was tons better. This field was so much better that I can\u2019t even tell you how much better that it is. We\u2019re not running on rocks, the ball doesn\u2019t do funky stuff, it\u2019s got grass\u2014it\u2019s a very nice field,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Her teammate Laila Qudsi shared Helbert\u2019s sentiments and explained some of the hazards that the AMP facility holds for the players.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis field is great. There\u2019s not so many holes and not so many rocks. We don\u2019t have to worry about falling and scraping our knees and elbows. It just feels better all around,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Brenda Schultz was the driving force behind the success of the women\u2019s league both on and off the field, giving her a unique perspective as both a player and organizer. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s heaven. This field is so great because you can actually play the ball without looking. It feels safer. I really, really appreciate that they let us use it and I really, really hope they let us use it again in the future,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Betty Johnson ran the field alongside Schultz for the Fiesta Resort and Spa Femme Fatales and she had said that there was no comparison between the two surfaces.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis field is so much nicer than the one at AMP. It\u2019s pretty level, you don\u2019t have to worry about ruts, and hurting your knees and back. It\u2019s wonderful,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The players weren\u2019t the only ones who appreciated the use of the field as UMDA Hot Salsa head coach Jaime Saiki was hopeful that NMIFA might make use of the facility in the future.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe discovered this great field and hopefully it will be assigned to us in the future. This field is great. It was built to play soccer. I know we have to be very careful about the track. It\u2019s a multi-million dollar investment so we have to take care of it,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Mamma Mia\u2019s head coach Wes Bogdan agreed with Saiki and said that Saipan\u2019s brand of soccer took a step up when the women had the benefit of a top- notch field of play to compliment their abilities.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t want to hurt the track at all but this would be the field obviously. The quality of soccer goes up because the ball takes better bounces and the players\u2019 feet don\u2019t hurt. It\u2019s a much, much better field than anything else that we\u2019ve got on Saipan,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Bogdan said that the Oleai facility is better for a number of reasons including the safety of the players as the Garapan park has patches of rocks, coral, and concrete in the field of play.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not dangerous. I hate to say that the [AMP] field was the cause of the other injury that happened last week where a broken ankle occurred, but that field [has] bad injuries,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
The center of the field has been used from time to time by a small number of groups as the site coordinators have been protective of the track surface. Walking across the lanes with cleats would cause damage to the state of the art facility and if the women\u2019s tournament was any example, the NMIFA officials seem to have the remedy.<\/p>\n
All players and officials removed their cleats prior to crossing the rubberized surface and had several ball boys and girls on hand to chase the balls that were sent out of bounds. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re really watching that trying to make sure that there are certain conditions to use the field,\u201d said Bogdan.<\/p>\n
According to site scheduler Eli Rangamar the field is open for all to use, however, with so many groups interested it will require plenty of advanced planning. <\/p>\n
\u201cI was a soccer guy too. That was my sport and I\u2019d like to get into it but we\u2019re going to have to sit down with them and work out the schedule. It\u2019s not a problem to let them use the field but even the football league wants to use the field and we have to ensure that there aren\u2019t any conflicts,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Rangamar said that the facility will not be available for the teams to use for practice but will be the ideal place for marquee games and can be used in the evenings as well, thanks to the addition of the lighting array prior to the hosting of the Micronesian Games.<\/p>\n
Making the switch from the AMP to the OSC comes as welcome news to NMIFA Men\u2019s Open League coordinator Vince Stravino and he said that he is 95-percent sure that this Sunday\u2019s games will be played inside the oval.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s looking promising. I have to go down there to measure it but I think we\u2019ll be playing there this weekend. [The Division of Sports and Recreation staff] has been extremely gracious and accommodating,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
While the move looks like a sure thing, Stravino said that he appreciates everything that the AMP has done to host the league.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After spending all of the regular season scoring goals and chasing balls at the American Memorial Park, the Northern Mariana Islands Football Association Women\u2019s League moved to the Oleai Sports Complex for its championship tournament over the weekend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-106972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106972"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106972\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}