{"id":206286,"date":"2015-07-28T06:00:28","date_gmt":"2015-07-27T20:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=206286"},"modified":"2015-07-28T06:00:28","modified_gmt":"2015-07-27T20:00:28","slug":"saipan-beats-guam-in-friendly-billiards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/saipan-beats-guam-in-friendly-billiards\/","title":{"rendered":"Saipan beats Guam in friendly billiards"},"content":{"rendered":"

Team Saipan bested visiting Guam, 11-8, in last Saturday\u2019s Marianas Shoot To Thrill Saipan vs Guam 8-Ball Pool Tournament held at the Abyss Restaurant in Garapan.<\/p>\n

\"Team<\/a>
Team Guam captain and billiards league secretary Ernie Cid, left, joins his teammates and Saipan counterpart Warlee Ellama, right, for a group photo during last Sunday\u2019s awards banquet of the Budweiser-Saipan Billiards Association Winter\/Spring season. (Jon Perez)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

All 19 Singles 8-Ball matches played in the race-to-11 contest were close as Guam showed that the host team\u2019s roster did not intimidate them.<\/p>\n

Both teams experienced bad breaks and missed shots but all the players tested their talents in playing safety if there\u2019s no open shot.<\/p>\n

The 5-on-5, one-day tournament\u2014which followed an alternate break format\u2014featured the most valuable players from the respective billiards leagues in Guam and on Saipan.<\/p>\n

Team Saipan actually started on the wrong foot after Jerry Soriano lost to Frank Purtusack in the opening Singles match.<\/p>\n

Nolan Cultura and Rolly Villanueva gave the hosts a 2-1 lead when they scored consecutive wins over Mike Mahilum and Ernie Cid. Marvin Olamit tied the count after beating Patrick Cepeda.<\/p>\n

Manny Mariano kicked off a three-game win streak by the hosts to enjoy a 5-2 breathing room. He defeated Francis Tenorio while Soriano and Cultura clinched two more wins against Portusack and Olamit.<\/p>\n

Mahilum kept Guam within striking distance after besting Villanueva, 5-3. But Tenorio and Cid dropped close matches against Cepeda and Mariano for a 7-3 count.<\/p>\n

Guam won five of the next eight matches to keep their hopes alive with Tenorio, Purtusack, Mahilum, and Olamit emerging victorious in their respective matchups against Soriano, Villanueva, and Cepeda.<\/p>\n

Team Saipan, however, was still up 10-8 with the pressure of clinching the win falling on the hands of Cepeda against Tenorio.<\/p>\n

Cepeda, the Budweiser-Saipan Billiards Association Thursday Open 8-ball League finals MVP, did not disappoint the home team and defeated Tenorio to seal Saipan\u2019s victory.<\/p>\n

Cepeda played calm under pressure despite Tenorio\u2019s repeated attempts to turn things to his favor and allow Guam to tie the match and force a deciding Singles match.<\/p>\n

Mahilum, Olamit, and Portusack are three of Guam\u2019s top billiards players in their own league.<\/p>\n

Team Guam also attended last Sunday\u2019s awards banquet of the Budweiser-SBA Winter\/Spring 2015 season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Team Saipan bested visiting Guam, 11-8, in last Saturday\u2019s Marianas Shoot To Thrill Saipan vs…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48,"featured_media":206300,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[6188,6189,6079,6190],"class_list":["post-206286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-ernie-cid","tag-marvin-olamit","tag-team-guam","tag-team-saipan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206286","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\/48"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=206286"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206286\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/206300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}