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NMIVA holds first tournament this Saturday
Mt. Carmel School’s Louisa Han bends for a return during a Northern Mariana Islands Volleyball Association-organized tournament last month at the Fiesta Resort & Spa Saipan sand court. This Saturday, NMIVA will hold a reverse co-ed grass tournament in Navy Hill. (Roselyn B. Monroyo)
Northern Mariana Islands Volleyball Association will start the season with the staging of the 2019 Kickoff Reverse Co-Ed Grass Volleyball Tournament this Saturday at the Navy Hill Field.
The competition that will begin at 8am is a fundraiser with proceeds going to Mt. Carmel School, which sustained massive damage from Super Typhoon Yutu.
NMIVA president Laurie Peterka said that Kai Higuchi of MCS Class of 2017 reached out to the federation in November to seek assistance with hosting a fundraiser to help create an event on behalf of the Mt. Carmel School Alumni.
“As a college student, there is really not much that I could do to provide relief besides bringing people together to come up with something. That’s when I decided to start up a volleyball fundraiser with Seokjun Yun and Dayna Macaranas. Although we had some general ideas, we were not quite sure of how to run an actual fundraiser. That’s when NMIVA came into play and guided us through every step of the way. It was amazing how welcoming and eager they were to help us out,” Higuchi said.
NMIVA received Kai’s request a couple of weeks before the Hope for Tomorrow Youth Beach Volleyball Fundraiser took place (last month) and the group is more than happy to continue the spirit of community partnership and help with rebuilding in our community. Incidentally, NMIVA used to host a grass volleyball event every January from 2009 to 2016. NMIVA asked Kai if they would like to try hosting a reverse co-ed tournament for their fundraiser and they agreed.
“Our NMIVA working group is dedicated to reviving the NMIVA calendar of events. The timing of getting our working group organized and then the recent storm was tragic, but we are trying to not let that stop us,” said Peterka.
This Saturday’s competition is a 4-person event with each team allowed to have as much as six players. Registration fee is only $10 per player.
