{"id":340220,"date":"2021-03-15T06:04:48","date_gmt":"2021-03-14T20:04:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=340220"},"modified":"2021-03-15T06:04:48","modified_gmt":"2021-03-14T20:04:48","slug":"covid-19-cancels-basketball-anew","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/covid-19-cancels-basketball-anew\/","title":{"rendered":"COVID-19 cancels basketball anew"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_340222\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-340222\" style=\"width: 432px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/RBA-pix.jpg\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-340222\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The gates of the Koblerville Gymnasium that hosts the NMI Rollers Basketball Spring Madness tournament were locked last Saturday as a result of the recent surge of COVID-19 positive cases in the community. (Kimberly A. Bautista)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The CNMI recording its first local transmission of COVID-19 in 204 days resulted in the postponement of the Rollers Basketball Association\u2019s NMI RBA Spring Madness league that was just starting to enter its championship phase at the Koblerville Gymnasium. <\/p>\n<p>In a short statement from tournament director Ethan Kwon, RBA is pushing back all games until further notice. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes, we are pushing back our games until further notice and will most likely resume next weekend,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n<p>Kwon said RBA is taking such measures to ensure the safety of the children who are participating in the spring caging. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are playing it safe for the kids. We would like to give the [Governor\u2019s] COVID-19 Task Force enough time to do their contact tracing before we resume,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n<p>The decision to postpone the league, which was heading into its championship matches with the U11 scheduled to complete its second championship match last Saturday, came immediately after a number of community members tested positive over the weekend. <\/p>\n<p>Over the weekend, the Governor\u2019s COVID-19 Task Force identified a community cluster of cases which identified eight new positive COVID-19 cases within the community.  <\/p>\n<p>One of the new positives was a student at the Garapan Elementary School that resumed face-to-face learning just a few months back. <\/p>\n<p>In other news, despite the recent development of COVID-19 within the community, matches in the Northern Mariana Islands Football Association-organized leagues continued as planned over the weekend continued as scheduled.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCommunity developments are being monitored closely and if there are any changes to the league schedule, the NMIFA will be sure to notify the public,\u201d a statement from the NMIFA said. <\/p>\n<p>However, NMIFA is currently enforcing a temporary restriction of youth ages 12 and younger from entering the training facility in Koblerville. <\/p>\n<p>Face masks are mandatory before entering the training facility and individuals must practice social distancing at all times while inside. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The CNMI recording its first local transmission of COVID-19 in 204 days resulted in the&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":340221,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[310],"class_list":["post-340220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-basketball"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340220","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=340220"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340220\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/340221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=340220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=340220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=340220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}