\n\t\t\t\tSecond heat winners in the pie-eating contest, from left to right, are MVA marketing manager Bruce Bateman, third place winner John Lewis, first place winner Simon Necesito, second place winner Ray Emul, and MVA\u2019s Ryan Calvo. (Jayson Camacho)\n\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\nThe first heat started out with competitors in the 17-and-below age category vying for the first three places. Compared to last year\u2019s, this year\u2019s competitors were allowed to use their hands to hold their plates. However, no one can lift the plate off the table.<\/p>\n
One highlight of the category was a 6-year-old girl who joined the competition, drawing attention and cheers despite not winning the heat.<\/p>\n
Emerging victorious with faces and fingers full of pie were Erick Enriquez, Joel Fruit, and Conall Hartig.<\/p>\n
The second heat included 10 competitors. Finishing first was Simon Necesito, who also won the hotdog-eating competition last week. Raymond Emul came in second place this time, after coming in third in last week\u2019s hotdog-eating competition, while John Lewis came in third.<\/p>\n
Both competitions had prizes for first place, which was $50 worth of Taste of the Marianas tokens, $30 for second, and $20 for third. The organizing Marianas Visitors Authority said the tokens were prizes and could not be exchanged for cash.<\/p>\n
Enriquez and Conall said they both joined because they thought the tokens could be exchanged for cash. However, MVA\u2019s Ryan Calvo informed them that it was just tokens that they could use for the remaining events of the Taste of the Marianas.<\/p>\n
Necesito was happy, saying that this time he came to win first place.<\/p>\n
MVA\u2019s Bruce Bateman noted the public\u2019s interest in joining the competition, saying they didn\u2019t have to announce the opening of entries for the competition as it was already full.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t even have to announce it, but all slots were filled before 8pm,\u201d Bateman said. \u201cSo far we\u2019ve had great participants for the competition and next week we will have a magic show.\u201d<\/p>\n
MVA Community Projects manager Martin Duenas noted that this time they had additional vendors. Tourists and community members got to enjoy local arts and crafts, necklaces, local jewelry, and many more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
More than 16 individuals signed up to chomp down on full-sized pies in Saturday\u2019s 2015…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":201217,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[4450,4451,212,4452],"class_list":["post-201212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-biba-marianas","tag-conall-hartig","tag-erick-enriquez","tag-mva","tag-raymond-emul"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201212","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\/45"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201212\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/201217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}