{"id":379582,"date":"2022-11-14T06:06:50","date_gmt":"2022-11-13T20:06:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=379582"},"modified":"2022-11-14T06:06:50","modified_gmt":"2022-11-13T20:06:50","slug":"sis-defends-ms-badminton-crown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/sis-defends-ms-badminton-crown\/","title":{"rendered":"SIS defends MS badminton crown"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Saipan International School, middle, took first place in the TakeCare-Public School System Interscholastic Badminton League. Agape Christian School, right in red, took second place, while Francisco M. Sablan Middle School, left in purple, took third place during the championship games last Saturday at the TSL Sports Complex. (LEIGH GASES)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In a whirlwind badminton-filled morning, the defending champions Saipan International School Geckos clung to the championship trophy during the finals of the TakeCare-Public School System Interscholastic Badminton League after shuttling past first-time competitors Agape Christian School Torchbearers last Saturday at the TSL Sports Complex.<\/p>\n

At the same time, Francisco M. Sablan Middle School and Tanapag Middle School vied for the bronze medal, with FMS bringing it home.<\/p>\n

ACS\u2019 Barbara Wang, May Kim, Joanna Zhang, Joyce Ying, Daniel Yang, Raffy Cai, Daniel Song, and Danny Cheng, challenged a tough SIS team which consisted of Nara Kim, Lina Tsukagoshi, Frank Li, Allen He, Michael Zhou, and Jason Yu.<\/p>\n

In the boys doubles, the Torchbearers\u2019 Yang and Cai overpowered the Geckos\u2019 Li and He, winning both matches, 21-20, 21-18.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the girls singles, Tsukagoshi mercilessly defeated ACS\u2019 Wang, 21-5, 21-5.\u00a0
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<\/a>
Saipan International School\u2019s Lina Tsukagoshi and Frank Li in position during their game against Agape Christian School in the mixed event finals of the TakeCare-Public School System Interscholastic Badminton League last Saturday at the TSL Sports Complex. (LEIGH GASES)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

In the boys singles, ACS\u2019 Yang salvaged the win against Li in three matches, 21-6, 9-21, 21-18.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the fourth event which was the girls doubles, SIS\u2019 Tsukagoshi and Kim almost fell to ACS\u2019 Wang and Kim as the Geckos squeezed themselves out of a tough spot thanks to Tsukagoshi\u2019s hard hits, defeating the Torchbearers after three close matches, 21-15, 18-21, 21-20.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For all the marbles in the last event which was the mixed doubles, Tsukagoshi and Li faced off with Yang and Wang for the last time. The first-time ACS players almost successfully staged an upset against defending champions SIS in the last event, but Tsukagoshi carried Li and her team to victory after her hard smacks and strategically placed hits caused ACS some missed hits and mistakes, winning three matches, 21-18, 19-21, 21-18.<\/p>\n

The SIS tandem of 12 year-old Tsukagoshi and 14 year-old Li said after the finals that they were both \u201cvery nervous,\u201d but that they were \u201cvery happy\u201d that they won.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Tsukagoshi added that \u201cit was very close\u2026 I almost lost the doubles because I was almost out of energy.\u201d Li recalled \u201cI didn\u2019t expect to make it to the championships last year,\u201d but this year, even though he expected to reach it, he thought they would lose because he made a lot of mistakes.<\/p>\n

SIS badminton coach Jeremy West said about his team that \u201cthey did really well\u2026 It was a lot of fun. Agape is great, really good competition. We just managed to make it in the end but it was back and forth the entire time, so it was a great game.\u201d<\/p>\n

ACS indeed gave SIS a run for their money and ACS administrator pastor Kok H. Pang said after the championships that it could have gone to either one of the schools, it\u2019s just that they \u201cmissed points\u2026 it [could] be either team but they just got it.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the Torchbearers have only been practicing for just a month and that \u201cif [we] have more time, we could be better\u2026 Most of our players are equal. Congratulations to [SIS]; we will come back. We shall return\u2026 give us more time, we shall see next year.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 2022 badminton season returns with the high school division with the Geckos up to defend their title as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a whirlwind badminton-filled morning, the defending champions Saipan International School Geckos clung to the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":379565,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[9120,699],"class_list":["post-379582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-ms","tag-sis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379582","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\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=379582"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379582\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/379565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=379582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=379582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=379582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}