{"id":338313,"date":"2021-02-11T06:06:11","date_gmt":"2021-02-10T20:06:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=338313"},"modified":"2021-02-11T06:06:11","modified_gmt":"2021-02-10T20:06:11","slug":"34-join-elite-training-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/34-join-elite-training-program\/","title":{"rendered":"34 join elite training program"},"content":{"rendered":"
Members of the Junior National Academy\u2019s Spring Class of 2021 pose for a photo with their coaches before starting their training session early this month at the NMI Soccer Training Center in Koblerville. (Contributed Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For the first time since its inception a couple of years ago, Northern Mariana Islands Football Association\u2019s Junior National Academy will have a separate pool for boys and girls, bringing the total of players who made the grade for the elite training program this season to 34.<\/p>\n

The JNA Spring Class of 2021 has 14 players in the girls pool and 20 in the boys and they were selected after going through a series of tryouts that started late last year. JNA is one of NMIFA\u2019s grassroots programs for players in the 10 to 12 age group and those who qualified for the special group are prepared for higher-level competitions and national team training system. <\/p>\n

Making it to the spring class are Mary Amog, Matty Angeles, Marlaina Benjamin, Wynona Blas, Julie Ann Chavez, Kaye Anne Costales, Valerie Estella, Azriel Fatialofa, Phoenix Gross, Ella Hall, Alana Hayes, Ron Ebana Quindoza, Fiona Regan, and Caurie Staffler in the girls division. The boys side has Mark Costales, Akeen Edvalson, Michael Elayda, Kohjiro Goto, Sernantie Jimenez, Yutaka Kadokura, Paul Lizama, Francisco Maratita, Anton Megino, Taiga Namia-Scoggins, Nolan Ngewakl, Jack Henry Raho, Tyrone Rio-Manipon, Moshe Sikkel, Landon Springer, Arstin and Jayson Tagabuel, Riku Takahashi, and Henry and Stephen Yeom.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are six new players on the girls team and five on the boys. The skill level is better as we have coached most of the players last season and can move up to the next level with ease this season,\u201d JNA head coach Jersh Angeles said.<\/p>\n

Coach Angie Ito, left, watches a player on the Junior National Academy\u2019s Spring Class of 2021 perform drills during a training session. (Contributed Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Angeles will call the shots for the boys squad and will be assisted by CNMI Men\u2019s National player Joshua Abragan and goalkeeper coach Raymond Zapanta, while Angie Ito and women\u2019s national team member Katrina Costales will handle the girls crew. Angeles, Ito, and Zapanta are certified coaches, while Costales and Abragan are currently taking the NMIFA \u201cC\u201d Coaching Certificate Course that started early this week.<\/p>\n

Angeles admitted that having the JNA class this season amid the COVID-19 pandemic is definitely challenging, but NMIFA and its pool of coaches are committed and determined to run the program to keep the players on track toward becoming strong candidates for the CNMI national team<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is very important for NMIFA to continue with this kind of program even if there\u2019s no definite tournaments yet. JNA prepares these young players technically, physically, and mentally before they step into the NMI National Team program and training has to be year-round,\u201d Angeles said.<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s class had its first training session last Thursday and the NMIFA coaches were pleased with the players\u2019 performance early into the season. However, Angeles said they have a lot of work ahead, especially at this time when they have to follow safety measures against the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will still focus on the basic techniques in the movement, coordination, moving the ball intentionally as a team, gaining the ball intentionally as a team and understanding player\u2019s positional task in a 5v5 and 8v8 game,\u201d the JNA head coach said.<\/p>\n

Angeles added they hope to develop a few more goalkeepers from the group now that JNA has Zapanta as goalkeeper mentor.<\/p>\n

\u201cCoach Raymond will introduce the fundamentals of goalkeeping. As of now we have two goalkeepers, one from each team and we\u2019re hoping to get more players to try goalkeeping,\u201d Angeles said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For the first time since its inception a couple of years ago, Northern Mariana Islands…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":338316,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-338313","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\/338313","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=338313"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338313\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/338316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=338313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=338313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=338313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}