{"id":279971,"date":"2018-07-13T06:06:59","date_gmt":"2018-07-12T20:06:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=279971"},"modified":"2018-07-13T06:06:59","modified_gmt":"2018-07-12T20:06:59","slug":"v-ball-team-counts-on-speed-chemistry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/v-ball-team-counts-on-speed-chemistry\/","title":{"rendered":"V-ball team counts on speed, chemistry"},"content":{"rendered":"
John Nekaifes, seen here bumping the ball during a tournament at the Gilbert C. Ada Gymnasium last year, is suiting up for the CNMI Men\u2019s National Team that will compete in the 2018 Micronesian Games in Yap this month. (Roselyn B. Monroyo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The CNMI Men\u2019s National Volleyball Team will lean on speed and chemistry when they compete in the 2018 Micronesian Games in Yap.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a young team with majority of our players in the 17 to 26 age group, so we will definitely have speed and stamina. These players have been practicing together since April and they have also been playing with or against each other in the past two years so they know how capable their teammates are,\u201d said coach Shawn Davis in an interview with Saipan Tribune yesterday.<\/p>\n

The squad is made up of Ryan Camacho, Mychal Omar, Alfredo Guevarra, Jr., Jerrett Rosario, Danilo Borlain, Nakashima \u201cBilly\u201d Nakashima, Don Marshall Cabrera, John Neikaifes, John Michael Costales, Logan Mister, Nick Gross, Tahj Salas, and Eric Kiser. They were selected from the pool of 21 athletes who joined the tryouts coordinated by Saipan Volleyball Club through the sanction of the Northern Mariana Islands Volleyball Association.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe team has good communication skills and camaraderie so hopefully that will produce possible results for us,\u201d added Davis, admitting that they don\u2019t know what to expect in the tournament, as it\u2019s been a while since the CNMI last competed in indoor volleyball and reports (about their opponents) are hard to find.<\/p>\n

The Commonwealth last fielded a men\u2019s volleyball team in 2006 when Saipan hosted the quadrennial event.<\/p>\n

\u201cThough we don\u2019t know much about your opponents, for sure Guam will be the strongest team in the field. You can also count Yap as a favorite since they are the home team. We will just see what the other teams will give us and respond base on the game situation,\u201d said Davis, who will join the team\u2019s last training session this Saturday before they head to Yap on July 17 in time for the opening of the volleyball competition on July 19.<\/p>\n

Besides Guam and Yap, the CNMI will also face Chuuk, Pohnpei, and Palau. Kiribati and Nauru had initially committed to compete in the men\u2019s indoor volleyball, but pulled out a few days before the Micro Games kicks offs.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the CNMI baseball, men\u2019s and women\u2019s basketball, athletics, men\u2019s and women\u2019s canoe, and weightlifting squads will be the second batch of athletes and officials leaving Saipan for Yap. The group will be reunited with the three-person spearfishing team in time for Sunday\u2019s opening ceremonies, while the swimming team (ocean swim) will join the volleyball group for the Tuesday flight to Yap.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The CNMI Men\u2019s National Volleyball Team will lean on speed and chemistry when they compete…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":279974,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[310,26,783,21942],"class_list":["post-279971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-basketball","tag-cnmi","tag-micronesian-games","tag-mychal-omar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279971","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=279971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279971\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/279974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}