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Lee, Song deliver wins for North Pacific Team
The CNMI’s Robbie Schorr, third left, and Ken Song, right, join the two Tahiti players for a photo during the awards ceremony for the 2016 Pacific Oceania Junior Championships in Fiji yesterday. (Contributed Photo)
Ken Song and Sean Lee swept their respective singles matches to lift the North Pacific Team to a tough 6-4 victory over the East at the conclusion of the team event in the 2016 Pacific Oceania Junior Championships in Fiji yesterday.
Song played in the second singles matches and outclassed Tahiti’s Brendon Fong, 7-5, 7-5, while Lee defeated American Samoa’s John Paul Lim, 6-2, 6-1, in the third and final singles game. Lee and Song’s sweeps gave the North the needed 4 points to win the pairing, as the Jeff Race-coached squad dropped the first singles and one doubles matches, which both went down-to-the-wire.
Boys U16 singles champion Robbie Schorr bowed to Tahiti’s Vaitea Molinier, 6-7 (4), 6-4, 9-11, and also lost in the doubles (with Song) over the same foe and Tonga’s Sigi Palelei, 4-6, 6-0, 4-10.
With its close win over the East, the North finished 2-0 in the team event as it also topped the West last Tuesday, 6-3.
In other results yesterday, the North and West had a standoff in the boys U12 age group, 4-4. The CNMI’s Seung Jin Paik delivered one win for the North after downing Fiji’s Armand Davias, 7-5, 6-3. Paik also played in the doubles, but he and fellow Commonwealth bet Ji Min Woo fell to Vanuatu’s Maui Leflon and Zachary Sands, 4-6, 3-6. Woo lost to Leflon, too, in an earlier singles match, 5-7, 6-7 (2), while the Federated States of Micronesia’s Jerson Freddy gave the North its second singles victory following a 6-0, 6-2 triumph over Fiji’s Storm Cornish.
In the girls U12, the West eased past the North, 8-0. The CNMI’s Coume Kaga was part of the North Team and dropped both her singles and doubles (with FSM’s Ridianne Wolphagen) matches. The West had a similar 8-0 win over the East in the girls U16, while the latter took the boys U16 game, 5-4. In the girls U14, the CNMI’s Asia Raulerson and Conatsu Kaga provided the North its lone win in their 2-6 loss to the East after topping American Samoa’s Crystal Christman and Samoa’s Eleanor Schuster in the doubles, 6-3, 6-2.
Overall, the East Team ruled the team event after winning seven pairings, while the North came in at second with four wins, and the West dropped to third with only three victories.
