{"id":298606,"date":"2019-05-01T06:06:41","date_gmt":"2019-04-30T20:06:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=298606"},"modified":"2019-05-01T06:06:41","modified_gmt":"2019-04-30T20:06:41","slug":"historic-pacific-games-stint","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/historic-pacific-games-stint\/","title":{"rendered":"Historic Pacific Games stint"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id='gallery-1' class='gallery galleryid-298606 gallery-columns-3 gallery-size-medium'><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon '>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/historic-pacific-games-stint\/pacifixpix-ezekiel-macario-2\/'>pacifixpix (ezekiel macario<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<figcaption class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-298621'>\n\t\t\t\tEzekiel Macario\n\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon '>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/historic-pacific-games-stint\/pacificpixmalasarte-2\/'>pacificpix(malasarte)<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<figcaption class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-298620'>\n\t\t\t\tMalasarte\n\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon '>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/historic-pacific-games-stint\/pacificpixjanelle-pangilinan-2\/'>pacificpix(janelle pangilinan)<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<figcaption class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-298619'>\n\t\t\t\tJanelle Pangilinan\n\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon '>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/historic-pacific-games-stint\/pacificpixguerrero-2\/'>pacificpix(guerrero(<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<figcaption class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-298618'>\n\t\t\t\tGuerrero\n\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon '>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/historic-pacific-games-stint\/pacificpixgalvez-2\/'>pacificpix(galvez)<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<figcaption class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-298617'>\n\t\t\t\tGalvez\n\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon '>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/historic-pacific-games-stint\/pacificpixdaniel-macario-2\/'>pacificpix(daniel macario))<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<figcaption class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-298616'>\n\t\t\t\tDaniel Macario\n\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon '>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/historic-pacific-games-stint\/pacificpix-jordan-pangilinan-2\/'>pacificpix( jordan pangilinan)<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<figcaption class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-298615'>\n\t\t\t\tJordan Pangilinan\n\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n<p>Seven players will represent the Northern Marianas Badminton Association and CNMI in the 2019 Pacific Games in Samoa.<\/p>\n<p>Nate Guerrero, siblings Jordan and Janelle Pangilinan, brothers Ezekiel and Daniel Macario, Nicole Malasarte, and Andreau Galvez are the members of the elite squad, which is the first group that NMBA will be fielding in the regional competition. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt feels great to be apart of the team and most especially the first squad to join the badminton tournament in the Pacific Games,\u201d said Guerrero, who is also the team\u2019s captain.<\/p>\n<p>Guerrero and company have been training for the Pacific Games that will run from July 7 to 20 since the first quarter of the year and he likes the significant improvement the team has shown.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRight now, the training sessions are going great. We are actually practicing pretty well considering everyone\u2019s busy schedule with work and school. The focus is to minimize mistakes and adjust to our partners,\u201d said Guerrero, who has consistently placed in tournaments NMBA hosted in the past years.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNot having any kind of coaching before, we rely on each other and videos to pick up new things,\u201d the team captain added.<\/p>\n<p>Guerrero, Daniel, and Galvez are the veterans on the squad with the latter a perennial contender in Class A of local tournaments and had his share of victories in a couple of events in Guam. Ezekiel, Malasarte, and the Pangilinan siblings are the young guns, but are regulars in NMBA-sanctioned competitions.<\/p>\n<p>Asked about their chances in the Pacific Games, Guerrero said they are capable of producing positive results in Apia.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe team has been really putting in an effort to practice and learn. I could say that everyone is a lot better than last year and having said that, I am confident that we will have good results in Samoa,\u201d said Guerrero, adding that New Caledonia and Fiji will be the teams to watch in the quadrennial meet.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere are a lot of good teams out there, but I think New Caledonia and Fiji will be the toughest, assuming New Zealand and Australia won\u2019t be competing,\u201d the former Little League player said.<\/p>\n<p>Australia and New Zealand, as of yesterday, are not listed among the countries that will be competing in badminton. Fiji, New Caledonia, and the CNMI are joined on the list by the hosts, American Samoa, the Cook Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, Guam, Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Tahiti, and Tuvalu. The 14 nations will play in the men\u2019s and women\u2019s singles and doubles and mixed doubles events from July 8 to 13.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe all are aware of what a great opportunity this is and we are excited to get some experience playing in an off-island tournament like this. However, the main goal\/objective is to go out there and win. Being the first champions for badminton in the Pacific Games would be a great achievement,\u201d Guerrero said.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, NMBA president Merlie Tolentino recognizes the significance of their participation in the Pacific Games.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe would like to build on this momentum (NMBA\u2019s historic participation in the Pacific Games) as we aim to strengthen the sport in the CNMI. We will also continue working on finding and developing talents, especially among our youth, for us to have a steady pool of players that can represent our islands in more international and regional competitions in the future,\u201d Tolentino said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Seven players will represent the Northern Marianas Badminton Association and CNMI in the 2019 Pacific&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":298614,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-298606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298606","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=298606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298606\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/298614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=298606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=298606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}