Elias Rangamar did not join the CNMI Women\u2019s Junior Nationals in Guam for the 7th FIBA Oceania Youth Tournament, instead allowing his deputy Jose Tumaquip to call the shots for the Commonwealth cagebelles\u2019 debut Sunday.<\/p>\n
Rangamar said he could not join the team due to work and other commitments, but he believes the CNMI cagebelles are in good hands.<\/p>\n
\u201cJose has been my assistant coach the past two years. He knows how to run our plays and the girls are comfortable with him,\u201d Rangamar said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBesides, it\u2019s about time that a young coach like him experience what it is like to coach a team in a tough tournament like the FIBA Oceania youth event,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Tumaquip lost his coaching debut in the FIBA caging, as the CNMI cagebelles bowed to Tahiti, 30-101.<\/p>\n
The game maybe a blowout, but Rangamar said he was pleased on how the CNMI cagebelles executed their trapping defense against the much taller and much experienced Tahiti players.<\/p>\n
\u201cJose called me and said Tahiti gave up against our girls\u2019 trapping defense so Tahiti sort of changed its offensive formation. We have a quick team so Jose decided to go for a press. The defense worked in the fourth quarter, as Tahiti\u2019s offense slowed down a bit,\u201d Rangamar said.<\/p>\n
\u201cCoach Jose and I are not concerned on how many our girls will score. We\u2019re more focused on how our girls will execute our play and show and skills we thought them during the training,\u201d Rangamar said.<\/p>\n
The CNMI Women\u2019s Junior Nationals had eight players scoring against Tahiti with Nicole Lebria leading the way with 10 points.<\/p>\n
Lia Rangamar added eight, Noelle Calvo chipped in five, and Yvonne Bennett, Nikita Hofschneider, and Jacque Wonenberg had two markers each. Dion Diaz scored a free throw.<\/p>\n
Alizee Lefranc paced Tahiti with 32 points, while Luci Matohi contributed 25 markers.<\/p>\n
Tahiti was ahead by 17 points after the first period, 25-8, and increased the lead to 37 at halftime, 51-14.<\/p>\n
The CNMI cagebelles showed their best offensive form in the third period, firing 13 markers, but Tahiti was still ahead by a big margin, 83-27.<\/p>\n
The CNMI bets had their lowest output in the fourth, making only three points.<\/p>\n
The CNMI cagebelles were facing Fiji in their second game in Pool A at the University of Guam Fieldhouse at press time. They will play their last game in Pool A today against defending champion Australia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Elias Rangamar did not join the CNMI Women\u2019s Junior Nationals in Guam for the 7th FIBA Oceania Youth Tournament, instead allowing his deputy Jose Tumaquip to call the shots for the Commonwealth cagebelles\u2019 debut Sunday.<\/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-126679","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\/126679","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=126679"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126679\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}