MISO competitions top week

 High school student-athletes made headlines last week with the opening of three leagues in the Marianas Interscholastic Sports  Organization.

The MISO boys caging kicked off at the Marianas High School Gymnasium with MHS, Saipan Southern High School, Grace Christian Academy, Kagman High School, and Mt. Carmel School fielding their respective varsity teams in the annual league. Saipan International School is also in the MISO league, but only has a junior varsity team.

A day after the MISO caging opener, the association also started the girls volleyball contest at the MHS gym, while girls soccer competition began at the Oleai Sports Complex.

Other notable events last week were the CNMI junior tennis players participation in two tournaments in Australia, the playoffs of the DLX caging, Gloria Omechelang and John Taisacan’s victories in the Saipan Bowling Association finale roll-offs, and Enticer 1.

Thea Minor, Rafael Jones, Tammy Ackerman, and Christian Miller competed in the 2012 Australia Post Margaret Court Cup with the former giving the Commonwealth its best finish in the event held in Albury after making it to the semifinals of the girls U16 singles. Miller won his first match in the qualifying draw of the U16 singles but lost in the second round, while Jones and Ackerman dropped their opening games in the men’s singles and U12 singles, respectively.

From Albury, Minor, Miller, and Ackerman went to Wodonga and joined the 2012 Victorian Junior Grasscourt Championships. Jones was also in Wodonga, but competed in a different tournament-the 2012 Wodonga Grasscourt Championships.

Back in local events, four teams-MDX, Blue Haus, SCS Heavy Equipment, and Wushin Express survived the first round of the playoffs in the DLX caging. Blue Haus went on to win the championship after dominating MDX in the finals.

Also securing championship wins were Omechelang and Taisacan, who were crowned SBA/Budweiser Queen of the Lanes and Fiji Water Prince of the Lanes, respectively, after topping the 2011 season-ending competition at the Capitol Bowling Center in Garapan last week.

Over at the Paupau Beach, a pre-XTERRA/Tagaman race dubbed as Enticer 1 was held last week with XTERRA World participant Butch Sublemente besting 14 other triathletes.