{"id":237265,"date":"2016-09-26T06:00:56","date_gmt":"2016-09-25T20:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=237265"},"modified":"2016-09-26T06:00:56","modified_gmt":"2016-09-25T20:00:56","slug":"thea-reaches-semis-ncaa-debut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/thea-reaches-semis-ncaa-debut\/","title":{"rendered":"Thea reaches semis in NCAA debut"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_237282\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-237282\" style=\"width: 215px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/athletespix-215x300.jpg\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-237282\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Thea Minor advanced to the semifinals in her NCAA debut with the Henderson State University last weekend. (Contributed Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Former CNMI top junior player Thea Minor made it to the semifinals of her NCAA Division 2 debut.<\/p>\n<p>Minor, who plays for the Henderson State University, competed in Flight 2 singles event in the 2016 Great American Conference Individual Championships held over the weekend at the Russelleville High School in Arkansas and was tested in two closely fought matches.<\/p>\n<p>She was pitted first against Southern Nazarene\u2019s Noelia Gomez and won the more than two-hour match, 7-6 (8), 6-1, to advance to the semifinals of the main bracket.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHaving that first win felt really good. It was a tough one, but every point was worth fighting for. The tiebreak was long and my opponent had a couple of set points, but I kept fighting,\u201d Minor said in a message sent to Saipan Tribune yesterday.<\/p>\n<p>Up next for the former New Mexico Military Institute standout was Southeastern Oklahoma\u2019s Aleksandra Relijic and Minor forced a super tiebreaker third set before losing. Relijic won the opening set, 6-3, but missed a sweep when Minor came back in the second in similar scores. In the third, the two players went back and forth before Relijic eked out a 11-9 victory to advance to the finals. The Southeastern Oklahoma player went on to win the finale with another hard-earned win against host Arkansas Tech\u2019s Tamara Bell, 2-6, 6-4, 10-7.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy semis match was another long and tougher game. It was played for nearly two hours and I lost a good fight,\u201d Minor said.<\/p>\n<p>After her eventful debut, the 21-year-old CNMI player said she expects more challenges in her rookie season with the HSU Reddies.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere will be more and tougher competitions ahead of me and I am ready to face them through the help of my coaches and teammates. It feels different playing on a new team, but we have a very good squad and coaches,\u201d the Saipan Southern High School graduate said. <\/p>\n<p>The Reddies are under head coach Brenda Joiner and will next compete in the ITA Regionals on Oct. 1 and 2. University of Central Oklahoma will host next weekend\u2019s tournament in Edmond, Oklahoma.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former CNMI top junior player Thea Minor made it to the semifinals of her NCAA&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":237282,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[8840,13577,13578,13579],"class_list":["post-237265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-henderson-state-university","tag-noelia-gomez","tag-southeastern-oklahoma","tag-southern-nazarene"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237265","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=237265"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237265\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/237282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}