The CNMI men\u2019s basketball team ran right smack into a red-hot Republic of Marshall Islands team and lost 85-68 yesterday in the 2004 Micronesian Basketball Tournament at the University of Guam field house.<\/p>\n
The setback means that the boys of playing coach Elias Rangamar must win their third game against Kosrae this morning to have a chance of getting into the medal round.<\/p>\n
The CNMI held down RMI to just three field goals in the opening four minutes of the ballgame to take a 20-6 lead. <\/p>\n
But Marshall Islands regrouped and outscored the CNMI 14-6 the rest of the quarter to cut its deficit to 20-26 going into the second.<\/p>\n
Team CNMI stayed aggressive at the start of the second quarter. They again tried to put some distance between them and Marshall Islands and succeeded in the early goings.<\/p>\n
A 7-3 spurt would give the CNMI a 33-23 lead with a little over four minutes remaining in the half. But the Marshallese fought back banking on their long-range gunners to get themselves back into the game.<\/p>\n
A 12-0 run gave Marshall Islands the driver\u2019s seat for the first time in the game, 35-33. And although John Santos retaliated with a bomb from rainbow country to retake the lead, RMI closed the half with a 6-0 run and entered halftime with a 41-36 edge.<\/p>\n
Rangamar\u2019s wards continued to play hard in the third period but RMI players were just making every conceivable shot they threw to the direction of the basket.<\/p>\n
Marshall Islands extended its lead to 7 points, 46-39, on a couple of 3-pointers. But a couple of old-fashioned 3-point plays by Abong Camacho and John Santos put the CNMI within 2 points of the Marshallese, 49-51.<\/p>\n
Marshall Islands, however, didn\u2019t like the idea of letting the CNMI get back into the thick of things going on an 11-1 tear to close the quarter and headed into the payoff period on top by 12 points, 62-50.<\/p>\n
The game went from bad to worse for Rangamar\u2019s boys in the fourth quarter. <\/p>\n
The Marshallese continued to find the bottom of the nylon in their attempts behind the 3-point arc. They also leaked out for several breakaway layups that allowed them to take a 70-52 lead with 6:54 remaining.<\/p>\n
The CNMI managed to cut the deficit to 12 points on several occasions, the last time on a couple of gift shots by swingman Gabriel White that made it 75-63 time down to 2:24.<\/p>\n
But that turned out to be the CNMI\u2019s last hurrah as the Marshallese went on a 10-5 run to finish the ballgame.<\/p>\n
The CNMI is in Pool A with the RMI, first-day victim Chuuk, and Kosrae. Playing in Pool B are Guam, Palau, Yap, and Pohnpei.<\/p>\n
Other Day 1 results in the men\u2019s competition saw Guam pulverize Pohnpei, 115-60; Marshall Islands defeat Kosrae, 65-54; and Yap upset Palau, 82-77.<\/p>\n
The CNMI women, meanwhile, split their first two games of the tournament. Coach Donald Blondin\u2019s players put their 44-72 rout on the hands of Palau Monday behind them and bounced back with a 57-46 victory over Chuuk yesterday. (With a report from Ricky Itaas)<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The CNMI men\u2019s basketball team ran right smack into a red-hot Republic of Marshall Islands team and lost 85-68 yesterday in the 2004 Micronesian Basketball Tournament at the University of Guam field house.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-82408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82408","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82408"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82408\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}