{"id":200285,"date":"2015-04-28T04:02:29","date_gmt":"2015-04-27T18:02:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=200285"},"modified":"2015-04-28T04:02:29","modified_gmt":"2015-04-27T18:02:29","slug":"football-festival-draws-over-200-players","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/football-festival-draws-over-200-players\/","title":{"rendered":"Football festival draws over 200 players"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_200286\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-200286\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a attid=\"200286\"  href=\"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/NMIVA-pix1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/NMIVA-pix1.jpg\" alt=\"A Tinian Premier Football Club player, left, uses his body to stop the ball during a co-ed U12 game against Shirley\u2019s Football Club in the 2015 NMIFA Youth Spring League Football Festival held last Saturday at the Koblerville Elementary School Field. (Roselyn B. Monroyo)\" width=\"600\" height=\"427\" class=\"size-full wp-image-200286\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-200286\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A Tinian Premier Football Club player, left, uses his body to stop the ball during a co-ed U12 game against Shirley\u2019s Football Club in the 2015 NMIFA Youth Spring League Football Festival held last Saturday at the Koblerville Elementary School Field. (Roselyn B. Monroyo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>A total of 235 players from seven clubs participated in the 2015 NMIFA Youth Spring League Football Festival held last Saturday at the Koblerville Elementary School Field.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe had a good turnout and we\u2019re happy to see the players\u2019 enthusiasm during the games despite the intermittent rain and the hot weather,\u201d Northern Mariana Islands Football Association general secretary Ross Zapanta, who also took note of the well-organized event thanks to the pool of referees, coaches, players\u2019 parents, and Koblerville officials.<\/p>\n<p>The festival featured games in the co-ed U8, U10, and U12 divisions, and grassroots program for U6. The U10 age group lured the most participants with 94, while 76 and 49 joined the U8 and U12 divisions, and U6 had 16 players.<\/p>\n<p>Officials of the participating clubs were proud of the performance of their respective players in the festival and the matches in the spring season.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ve seen significant improvements from our players. They have shown better endurance, discipline, and teamwork. Their skills have also improved,\u201d Tinian Premier Football Club president Arley Long said.<\/p>\n<p>Tinian brought two teams from the festival with its U10 and U12 squads each having 11 players.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey played well and showed what they\u2019ve been doing during our training sessions,\u201d added Long, who thanked the Child Care and Development Fund for helping them start and continue the program that also draws support for Sherman Consulting, LLC and its head Philip Long.<\/p>\n<p>Tan Holdings fielded 30 players from three age groups (U6, U8, and U10) in the festival and won all their matches, according to the club\u2019s general secretary Ador Dimaano. Dimaano also made special mention of their player\u2019s much improved skills, saying they are ready to elevate their games to the next level.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe teamwork is there and they really work hard on improving their skills every game,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>As for Kanoa FC, general secretary Cristy Villaflor said that although some of their players started football late and joined the team just one or two years ago, they held their ground against much experienced players during the festival and the earlier games.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey are picking up skills that they need in order to join competitive games in the coming years and are very eager to learn,\u201d Villaflor said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A total of 235 players from seven clubs participated in the 2015 NMIFA Youth Spring&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":200286,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[4171,4172,4173,4174],"class_list":["post-200285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-ador-dimaano","tag-arley-long","tag-philip-long","tag-ross-zapanta"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200285","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\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200285\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/200286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}