{"id":185007,"date":"2014-11-14T04:00:21","date_gmt":"2014-11-13T18:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=185007"},"modified":"2014-11-14T04:00:21","modified_gmt":"2014-11-13T18:00:21","slug":"fast-pitch-softball-golf-want-join-pacific-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/fast-pitch-softball-golf-want-join-pacific-games\/","title":{"rendered":"Fast-pitch softball, golf want to join Pacific Games"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Marianas<\/a>
Marianas High School\u2019s Jayna Lizama throws a pitch, while a Saipan Southern High School runner gets ready to steal third base during their title game in the 2013-2014 season of the MISO fast-pitch softball League at the Miguel \u201cTan Ge\u201d Basa Pangelinan Ballfield. Fast-pitch softball is hoping to join the CNMI\u2019s delegation to the 2015 Pacific Games in Papua New Guinea. (Roselyn B. Monroyo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nFast-pitch softball and golf are hoping to be included on the CNMI\u2019s official delegation to the 15th Pacific Games set from July 4 to 18 in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea next year.<\/p>\n

Initially, the CNMI will be competing in only 5 of the 26 sports lined up for the 2015 Games with athletics beach volleyball, bodybuilding, lawn tennis, and triathlon confirming its participation to Northern Marianas Sports Association early this year.<\/p>\n

Softball, after years of inactivity, wanted to join the list with Rose Ada-Hocog at the forefront of reviving the association. Ada-Hocog said their group must first get their charter to be recognized and accepted as a NMSA member.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just responded to NMSA\u2019s request of reviving some sports that have been inactive for a long time. We need to get our association going,\u201d added Ada-Hocog, who will furnish NMSA president Mike White a copy of their group\u2019s charter for review.<\/p>\n

White has also requested Ada-Hocog to include men\u2019s softball under their new group since NMSA recognizes only one federation.<\/p>\n

Ada-Hocog added that she and several former female fast-pitch softball players are helping train a group of high school girls, while male players are also willing to get a team organized.<\/p>\n

Tony Rogolifoi, meanwhile, said that they plan to hold tryouts for the CNMI golf team before the end of the year to give the selected players a chance to practice and train before the July quadrennial sporting event.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will check with the group first but the tryout is open to all golfers who are qualified under the Pacific Games eligibility rules,\u201d said Rogolifoi.<\/p>\n

The Pacific Games Council\u2019s eligibility rules allow athletes who are citizens of the country they are representing to compete and they should have resided there for five straight years.<\/p>\n

NMSA is asking all sports federations competing in PNG next year to submit their entries by the end of the year.<\/p>\n

In related news, Jordan Kosam, who is currently off-island, has also mentioned to White that he plans to send a shooting team to the Pacific Games.<\/p>\n

Other sports to be played in next year\u2019s Games are basketball, beach soccer, boxing, cricket, football, hockey, karate, lawn bowls, powerlifting, rugby 7s, rugby league, squash, table tennis, taekwondo, touch rugby, va\u2019a, volleyball, weightlifting, and the medal rich swimming. (Jon Perez)<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fast-pitch softball and golf are hoping to be included on the CNMI\u2019s official delegation to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":185050,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[26,1162,196,1258],"class_list":["post-185007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-cnmi","tag-nmsa","tag-papua-new-guinea","tag-tony-rogolifoi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185007","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\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185007"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185007\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/185050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}