The Basketball Association of the Northern Mariana Islands will welcome the Settsu Red Impulse basketball team in its fourth consecutive appearance during the 2012 Settsu-Saipan Friendship Basketball Tournament scheduled from March 27 to 28 at the Marianas High School Gymnasium. <\/p>\n
The opening ceremony is scheduled for 3:30pm on Day 1 followed by a dozen matchups. Then on Day 2 starting at 4pm the consolation and championship matches will conclude the series immediately followed by the awards presentation.<\/p>\n
The event will feature four girls and four boys teams made up of players of ages 18 and under. <\/p>\n
The boys field is made up of Red Impulse, the SSFBT\u2019s 2011 defending champion Kagman High School Ayuyus; the SSFBT 2011 runner-up Marianas Interscholastic Sports Organization all-star team comprised of players from the MHS Dolphins, Saipan Southern High School\u2019s Manta Rays, and Tinian High School players; and a Coalition of Private School Sports Association all-star squad made up of players from Grace Christian Academy, Mount Carmel School, Saipan International School along with some other private school players.<\/p>\n
The girls division includes 2011\u2019s SSFBT runners up Red Impulse, last year\u2019s SSFBT defending champion MHS Lady Dolphins, a MISO all-star team comprised of players from SSHS, KHS and the THS Lady Stallions; and a COPSA group made up of the SIS Lady Geckos and other private school players.<\/p>\n
The Settsu Red Impulse basketball Club is based out of Osaka, Japan. <\/p>\n
According to BANMI\u2019s press release, they are hosting the tournament in the name of goodwill and their continued development efforts.<\/p>\n
This year, the Red Impulse group features an eight-man boys team and a nine-member girls squad. Back in the 2009 inaugural tournament, the Red Impulse boy\u2019s team fielded an Ironman six-player team and came up short in a thrilling heartbreaker to the MHS, who went on to finish in second place to the SSHS.<\/p>\n
Then in 2010 the Red Impulse boys beefed up their roster to a dozen, but settled for a third runner-up finish.<\/p>\n
2011 appeared to be a rebuilding year for the Red Impulse boys who came over with a seven-man line-up that managed a third place result.<\/p>\n
Hisataka Sakaguchi is the Red Impulse boys\u2019 lone returning player this time around. <\/p>\n
The Red Impulse girls won the tournament in 2009 and have since then settled for a pair of runner up finishes.<\/p>\n
The group is out for redemption this year against a veteran Lady Dolphins crew.<\/p>\n
Red Impulse will field a number of new faces this year, but still have returning stars Reika Yamasaki and Mizuki Iwasaki at the helm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Basketball Association of the Northern Mariana Islands will welcome the Settsu Red Impulse basketball team in its fourth consecutive appearance during the 2012 Settsu-Saipan Friendship Basketball Tournament scheduled from March 27 to 28 at the Marianas High School Gymnasium.<\/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-159013","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\/159013","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=159013"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159013\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}