{"id":271329,"date":"2018-03-06T06:06:26","date_gmt":"2018-03-05T20:06:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=271329"},"modified":"2018-03-06T06:06:26","modified_gmt":"2018-03-05T20:06:26","slug":"gca-leads-semis-cast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/gca-leads-semis-cast\/","title":{"rendered":"GCA leads semis cast"},"content":{"rendered":"
Grace Christian Academy 2\u2019s Sam Ryu, left, tosses the ball, while a Mt. Carmel School 1 player attempts for a block during the first set of their playoff game in the 2017-2018 Commonwealth Coalition of Private Schools Association yesterday at the Eagles court in Navy Hill.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Grace Christian Academy\u2019s two teams barged into the semifinal round of the middle school division of the 2017-2018 Commonwealth Coalition of Private Schools Association after eliminating their respective opponents yesterday at the Eagles court in Navy Hill.<\/p>\n

GCA 1 took the first Final Four berth after ousting Saipan Community School, 25-20, 25-10. GCA 1 was ranked second going into the playoffs as it finished the double-round robin regular season with a 10-3 record\u2014the same mark Mt. Carmel School 1 earned, but the Eagles won the tiebreak. SCS, on the other hand, placed No. 7 at the end of the preliminary round after gaining a 3-10 record.<\/p>\n

GCA 2 was the top finisher in the regular season with a perfect 13-0 record and arranged a quarterfinal showdown against the last-ranked MCS 2. As expected, the unbeaten squad eased past the Knights, 25-7, 25-12, to notch the second semis berth.<\/p>\n

The Caesar Libut-coached GCA 2 was up by only 6 early in the first set, 8-2, before pulling away, 16-3, behind the good spiking skills of Sam Ryu and Steven Balakrishna, who were perfectly set by their teammate Kat Saures. GCA 2 went on to keep its wide margin and ended the opening set when MCS 2 failed to return a serve from Ryu.<\/p>\n

In the second set, MCS 2 scored the first point, but it was an all-GCA 2 show after that with Balakrishna, Ryu, and Saures continuing to play steady for the top-ranked squad. Ryu then got the much- needed break late in the game with GCA 2 just a few points away from ousting MCS 2. He was replaced by Sean Gil, whose first two attempts for a spike went wide, but third time was the charm for the multi-sport athlete as his kill gave the Eagles the match point.<\/p>\n

With the victory, GCA 2 set up a semis duel against Agape Christian School, which pulled off an upset over last year\u2019s finalist Saipan International School in their playoff game at the Geckos court in As Lito yesterday.<\/p>\n

SIS prevailed in the first set, 25-14, but could not get the job done, as Agape recovered in the second, 25-14, and eked out a 15-13 triumph in the deciding third set to steal the win. Agape placed fifth going into the playoffs with its 4-9 record, while SIS was seeded higher at No. 4 after posting a 7-5 mark in the preliminary round.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the other semis pairing will have MCS 1 battling GCA 1. The Knights advanced to the Final Four following a 25-4, 25-14 domination of Seventh-Day Adventist School over at the MCS Gym in Chalan Kanoa yesterday. SDA was ranked at No. 6 in the single-elimination playoffs after earning a 4-8 mark.<\/p>\n

The semis matches will be played tomorrow with the Eagles aiming to arrange an all-GCA finale to keep the division championship in their possession. GCA 1 won the title in the 2016-2017 season after sweeping SIS in the finals, 25-12, 25-7.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Grace Christian Academy\u2019s two teams barged into the semifinal round of the middle school division…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":271332,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[698,1181,5162,699],"class_list":["post-271329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-gca","tag-mcs","tag-sam-ryu","tag-sis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271329","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=271329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271329\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/271332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=271329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=271329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=271329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}