{"id":415254,"date":"2024-10-18T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-10-18T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=415254"},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-29T14:00:00","slug":"Silver-for-Song-in-Marianas-Open","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/Silver-for-Song-in-Marianas-Open\/","title":{"rendered":"Silver for Song in Marianas Open"},"content":{"rendered":"

The lone wolf of Trench Tech Purebred Saipan during the 2024 Marianas Open International Championship Jiu-Jitsu Tournament (gi only) was Ballen Song and he settled for a silver medal last Saturday in the male white adult lightweight division at the University of Guam Calvo Field House.<\/p>\n

The 29-year-old faced Guam\u2019s Landon Taitingfong in the finals, settling for silver by points as Taitingfong had the advantage with better wrestling takedowns. In the semifinals against Guam\u2019s Brent San Nicolas, Song secured a 16-second submission via ankle lock to punch his ticket to the finals. Prior to that, he won over George Pangelinan Jr.<\/p>\n

Song, who is of Korean descent and raised on Saipan since he was 10 years old, said walking into the competition, he was nervous carrying Trench Tech alone that day.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t want my lack of skills to reflect on the gym\u2019s reputation negatively, however thanks to all the training under professor [Justis] \u201cCuki\u201d Alvarez we secured a silver medal for Saipan. Highlight of my competition was getting a submission at 16 seconds and [being] acknowledged by the world champion Felipe Andrew and Leticia Cardozo who were spectating from the sideline.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another highlight, he said, was when \u201cprofessor Cuki and his wife Mari, who received the Pioneer Award for keeping the martial arts alive not just on Saipan but also on our neighboring islands.\u201d<\/p>\n

He then gave a shout out to all his coaches and teammates in Trench Tech, \u201cespecially Rey Kim who invests a lot of his personal time on the class curriculum for the students. Shout out to Kika of Purebred Guam for winning $5,000 for [the] brown belt division. All her hard work paid off. Shout out to [the] Saipan Submissions [Academy] for representing the island together out there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alvarez, owner and professor at Trench Tech, said of Song\u2019s performance, \u201cOverall, he did well. He won his [first] and [second] matches and transferred to the gold medal final match. But in receiving the silver medal, although we got second place and made it to the podium, we actually lost the gold medal. So, we ended the tournament with a loss.\u201d<\/p>\n

With that, he said, \u201cWe have a lot to work on and need to be more proficient in finishing the later rounds strong. The later rounds are the important rounds. All in all, it was a good showing and from this loss, we got better because we know where we need to get better at.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Marianas Open was the grand finale in the 2024 Marianas Pro Series. It began with the Copa De Marianas Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Gi\/No-Gi Tournament last February; then the Marianas Pro Japan last March; the Marianas Pro Philippines last April; and the Marianas Pro Korea last June.<\/p>\n

This last tournament in Guam featured over 750 martial artists from around the world and had the largest turnout in history.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Trench Tech Purebred Saipan’s Ballen Song, left, with his silver medal in the male white adult lightweight division\u00a0of the 2024 Marianas Open International Championship Jiu-Jitsu Tournament (gi only)\u00a0last Saturday at the University of Guam Calvo Fieldhouse.<\/p>\n

-CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
<\/figcaption><\/figure>

<\/p>\n

Trench Tech Purebred Saipan’s Ballen Song, center, poses with with jiu jitsu black belt world champions Felipe Andrew, left, and Leticia Cardozo before the 2024 Marianas Open International Championship Jiu-Jitsu Tournament (gi only).<\/p>\n

-CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The lone wolf of Trench Tech Purebred Saipan during the 2024 Marianas Open International Championship…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-415254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415254","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=415254"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415254\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=415254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=415254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=415254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}