{"id":288353,"date":"2018-11-09T06:04:02","date_gmt":"2018-11-08T20:04:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=288353"},"modified":"2018-11-09T06:04:02","modified_gmt":"2018-11-08T20:04:02","slug":"nmiva-may-pass-up-on-pacific-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/nmiva-may-pass-up-on-pacific-games\/","title":{"rendered":"NMIVA may pass up on Pacific Games"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_288355\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-288355\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/nmivapix.jpg\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-288355\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A Saipan Southern High School player receives a serve at the backline during their game against Saipan International School in the 2018-2019 PSS Interscholastic Volleyball League, which is one of the competitions Northern Mariana Islands Volleyball Association supports. (Roselyn B. Monroyo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>After Super Typhoon Yutu struck Saipan and damaged majority of the sports facilities here, Northern Mariana Islands Volleyball Association may have to pass up on the 2019 Pacific Games in Apia, Samoa.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI would say it\u2019s highly doubtful at this point, but we would try our hardest to make it possible,\u201d NMIVA president Lauri Peterka said.<\/p>\n<p>NMIVA, during the previous Northern Marianas Sports Association meetings, said the group is interested in sending teams to next year\u2019s Pacific Games that will be held from July 7 to 20. Initially, NMIVA informed NMSA during last month\u2019s meeting that it will have men\u2019s and women\u2019s beach volleyball teams and will also field a men\u2019s squad in the indoor competition.<\/p>\n<p>However, after the super typhoon hit the island, it will be very challenging for NMIVA to have players and resources available for the Mini Games, as Saipan is now focused on recovery efforts. NMIVA, with its remaining resources, will instead focus on local events and the 2021 Mini Games that the CNMI will be hosting.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s more likely that we will focus our resources locally to keep expanding our player base and try to reinvest to get ready for 2021 (Pacific Mini Games) here on Saipan,\u201d Peterka said.<\/p>\n<p>NMIVA coordinates with school competitions, such as the Commonwealth Coalition of Private Schools Association Volleyball League and the PSS Interscholastic Volleyball League, which fortunately concluded its middle school and girls high school tournaments before Yutu slammed Saipan. A four-person beach volleyball event also took place at the Hyatt Regency Saipan sand court a few weeks before the Category 5 typhoon hit the island. For off-island events, NMIVA sent a men\u2019s team to Yap for the 2018 Micronesian Games held last July.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, Peterka said NMIVA had already reached out to Oceania Zonal Volleyball Association and the F\u00e9d\u00e9ration Internationale de Volleyball to ask for support, as the local federation joins the rest of the community in bouncing back from Yutu.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After Super Typhoon Yutu struck Saipan and damaged majority of the sports facilities here, Northern&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":288355,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[23216,1845,1654,2820],"class_list":["post-288353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-lauri-peterka","tag-nmiva","tag-pacific-games","tag-pacific-mini-games"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288353","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=288353"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288353\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/288355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}