{"id":290047,"date":"2018-12-10T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-12-09T20:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=290047"},"modified":"2018-12-10T06:00:00","modified_gmt":"2018-12-09T20:00:00","slug":"agape-set-for-historic-title","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/agape-set-for-historic-title\/","title":{"rendered":"Agape set for historic title"},"content":{"rendered":"
An Agape Christian School 1 player goes for an underhand serve during a regular season game in the CCOPSA middle school volleyball league at the ACS court. (Roselyn B. Monroyo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Agape School Christian School has already made history by advancing to the finals of the 2018-2019 Commonwealth Coalition of Private Schools Association Volleyball League, but is looking to further cement its legacy in the competition by bringing home its first championship trophy.<\/p>\n

The Torchbearers are looking to give Agape its first volleyball crown in the school\u2019s 25-year history when they take on elimination round top finisher Grace Christian Academy 1 in the title match this week. Agape is considered by many as the underdogs in the matchup, as it will go up against a squad that has been undefeated in the last three seasons and has a rich championship experienced, having been in the finale several times and snagging the division title in the last two editions of the competition.<\/p>\n

Despite facing the challenge of the intimidating middle school volleyball program of the Eagles, Agape 1 team captain David Zheng is confident that their team still has a good chance against the heavily favored GCA 1.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe feel that we can win,\u201d Zheng said. \u201cI think that both teams are quite equal.\u201d<\/p>\n

When asked about the secrets to the team\u2019s growth in maturity and skill in the last three years that led to Agape\u2019s first finals appearance in the league, Zheng boiled it down to two main ingredients: unwavering faith and a solid work ethic. <\/p>\n

\u201cFirst and foremost, we trust in God, and secondly, we also train hard,\u201d Zheng said. \u201cWe always pray to God that He would be with us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Because Agape Christian School\u2019s campus was left relatively unscathed by Super Typhoon Yutu, their middle school and high school teams were able to resume practice a week after the storm ransacked a majority of the island. Most remarkably, Agape\u2019s school operations didn\u2019t miss a beat and it resumed classes on Oct. 26.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn one hand, we felt really saddened by the typhoon situation,\u201d Agape head coach En Yang Pang stated. \u201cOn the other hand, we were also very thankful that we were able to get back right into the swing of things.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Torchbearers are grateful for their ability to weather the storm, as well as the rare opportunity to compete in a winner-take-all championship game. <\/p>\n

\u201cOur biggest emotion right now is probably just thankfulness,\u201d Pang said.<\/p>\n

ACS 1 is approaching this historic sports moment with confidence in their skills, faith in God, a blue-collared work ethic, and gratefulness. With these winning team qualities and about a month of volleyball training and strategizing, the Torchbearers are primed and ready to make another history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Agape School Christian School has already made history by advancing to the finals of the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":290049,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1285,23043,23446,23107],"class_list":["post-290047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-acs","tag-david-zheng","tag-en-yang-pang","tag-super-typhoon-yutu"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290047","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\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=290047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290047\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/290049"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=290047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=290047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=290047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}