{"id":219770,"date":"2016-01-29T06:00:29","date_gmt":"2016-01-28T20:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=219770"},"modified":"2016-01-29T06:00:29","modified_gmt":"2016-01-28T20:00:29","slug":"agape-sis-draw-first-blood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/agape-sis-draw-first-blood\/","title":{"rendered":"Agape, SIS draw first blood"},"content":{"rendered":"
Agape Christian School players and coach Noel Puno, standing right, pose for a group photo before heading to Grace Christian Academy to play their debut game in the middle school division of the COPSSA caging last Tuesday. (Contributed Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Agape Christian School and Saipan International School had winning debuts in the middle school division of the 2015-2016 Coalition of Private School Sports Association Basketball League which opened last Tuesday at the various school courts on Saipan.<\/p>\n

Agape dominated Grace Christian Academy, 37-12, at the Eagles turf in Navy Hill, while SIS hosted Saipan Community School and also cruised to a 37-22 victory. Both matches were in the boys division.<\/p>\n

Dawei Cai gave the Torchbearers a good start in the six-team division, as he scored a game-high 15 points. Haoyu Chen also finished in double figures in Agape\u2019s season opener, firing 13. <\/p>\n

Agape used its ceiling advantage to take control of the game right at the get-go en route to its 25-point winning margin.<\/p>\n

Cai knocked in three field goals and outgunned the entire Eagles crew to lift the Torchbearers to a 10-4 lead. Chen drilled the two other baskets for Agape, while GCA\u2019s lone field goal came from Claude Aquino.<\/p>\n

Agape slowed down in the second period, making only 4 markers off Chan\u2019s 2 points and Shonyou Du and Cai\u2019s splits, but the Eagles had another 2-point production from Aquino\u2019s second field goal, allowing the Torchbearer to build a double-digit lead at the break, 14-6.<\/p>\n

At the resumption of the match, GCA finally managed to outscore Agape, 8-5, behind Aquino\u2019s 6 points and Sejin Kim\u2019s deuce, and cut the deficit to 7, 19-12. The Torchbearers lost the twin-digit advantage as Cai and Chen went scoreless in the third and Tianrui Zhang, Tychicus En, and Enlin Zou combined for two field goals and one free throw.<\/p>\n

However, that was the closest that GCA could get, as it failed to light up the board in the final canto, while Cai finished strong, adding 6 more points. Chan also tallied 6 markers in the fourth quarter, while Lue Xiong chipped in 4.<\/p>\n

In other results last Tuesday, the Geckos also led from start to finish to start their title defense on a winning note.<\/p>\n

SIS won last year\u2019s boys middle school championship after routing Mt. Carmel School in the finale, 44-27. MCS, on the other hand, prevailed in the girls finals after downing GCA, 28-12.<\/p>\n

Mt. Carmel also played in the opening day against Seventh Day Adventist, but results of the girls and boys division matches last Tuesday were unavailable at press time.<\/p>\n

Games in the middle school league are played every Tuesday and Thursday with the participating teams playing in double-round robin elimination. Playoff matches are scheduled from March 1 to 4 with the format yet to be determines. There are six teams in the boys division and only three in the girls.<\/p>\n

Yesterday, MCS\u2019 boys team was slated to meet GCA at the former\u2019s court, while the two other matches featured SIS vs Agape and SDA vs SCS.<\/p>\n

ACS 37\u2014Cai 15, Chen 13, Xiong 4, Zhang 2, En 2, Zou 1.<\/p>\n

GCA 12\u2014Aquino 8, S. Kim 2, Hahn 2.<\/p>\n

Scoring by quarters: 10-2, 14-4, 19-12, 37-12.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Agape Christian School and Saipan International School had winning debuts in the middle school division…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":219780,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[698,1363,1181,699],"class_list":["post-219770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-gca","tag-grace-christian-academy","tag-mcs","tag-sis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219770","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=219770"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219770\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/219780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=219770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=219770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=219770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}