{"id":309488,"date":"2019-10-07T06:06:06","date_gmt":"2019-10-06T20:06:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=309488"},"modified":"2019-10-07T06:06:06","modified_gmt":"2019-10-06T20:06:06","slug":"ite-light-in-docomo-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/ite-light-in-docomo-out\/","title":{"rendered":"IT&#038;E Light in, Docomo out"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/one-pacifixpic.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The playoff cast in the 2019 One Pacific Promotional Basketball League was completed over the weekend with IT&amp;E Light taking the last seat and Docomo Pacific getting the boot.<\/p>\n<p>Docomo seemed to be headed to the postseason after notching two consecutive wins\u2014versus Max\u2019s Restaurant last Tuesday, 95-50, and RNV Construction last Thursday, 71-54, before losing their shot at the playoffs after a heartbreaking loss to Light &amp; Salt, 66-71, last Saturday at the Civic Center Court.<\/p>\n<p>Docomo finished the round-robin elimination with a 4-7 record for ninth place in the team standings. Only the Top 8 will advance to the playoffs and had Docomo won over Light &amp; Salt and IT&amp;E Light lost its last game in the regular season, the former would have gotten the eighth and final playoff ticket. IT&amp;E Light had a 4-6 record, pending the results of its game against RNV Construction last night.<\/p>\n<p>Light &amp; Salt, which had been booted out of the competition since last week, tooks Docomo with them for an early vacation in the 12-team field. Max\u2019s Restaurant and Gilas Batang were the other eliminated squads, while joining IT&amp;E Light in the playoffs are Tsingtao Boys (9-2), Connie\u2019s BBQ (9-2), Mawati (7-3), Pardz Ballers (7-4), Saipan Adventure (7-4), RNV (6-3), and IT&amp;E Dark (5-6).<\/p>\n<p>Light &amp; Salt hit multiple triples in the fourth quarter to play a spoiler role in Docomo\u2019s playoff bid. Light &amp; Salt made four triples\u2014three from Arnold Natividad and one from Rommel Usi. Natividad scored 5 of Light &amp; Salt\u2019s last 9 points.<\/p>\n<p>Natividad top-scored for Light &amp; Salt with his 23 points, while Manibusan had a game-high 26 markers for Docomo, which played in last Saturday\u2019s crucial match without one of its main gunners\u2014Shane Deleon Guerrero.<\/p>\n<p>Deleon Guerrero delivered 22 points in their upset win over RNV last Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>After hanging on to a 18-17 lead in the first quarter, Docomo Pacific gained more cushion against RNV in the next two periods for a double-digit lead, 53-40.<\/p>\n<p>Docomo managed to take a baker\u2019s dozen lead in the third canto and kept its safe distance behind the hot shooting of Tony Diaz, who finished with a game-high 32 points.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Saturday\u2019s Game <\/strong><br \/>\nLight &amp; Salt 71\u2014Natividad 23, Pineda 16, Embile 11, R. Usi 9, M. Usi 7, Laxamana 2, Claveria 2.<br \/>\nDocomo Pacific 66\u2014Manibusan 26, Diaz 17, Sablan 6, Grow 6, Mendiola 4, Lukas 4, Kaipat 2.<br \/>\nScoring by quarters: 16-10, 30-27, 52-46, 71-66<\/p>\n<p><strong>Thursday\u2019s Game<\/strong><br \/>\nDocomo Pacific 71\u2014Diaz 32, Deleon Guerrero 22, Manibusan 8, Hayes 5, Mendiola 4.<br \/>\nRNV Construction 54\u2014Rueda 20, Baul 10, Biscocho 9, Navali 7, Odicta 3, Villacrusis 3, Taraya 2.<br \/>\nScoring by quarters: 18-17, 36-29, 53-40, 71-54<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The playoff cast in the 2019 One Pacific Promotional Basketball League was completed over the&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":309490,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-309488","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\/309488","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\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=309488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309488\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/309490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=309488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=309488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=309488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}