Marianas Village Cup draws 18 teams

Photo shows the uniform that participating teams will be using for the Marianas Villages Cup that will kick off this Saturday at the Gillette Multipurpose Gymnasium. (CONTRIBUTED PHOTO)

The Marianas Village Cup will kick off this Saturday at the Gillette Multipurpose Gymnasium of the TSL Sports Complex with 18 basketball teams spread into three divisions.

The boys U18 division will feature eight teams, while the women’s open has six squads, and four will vie for the U13 title. Participating squads will carry the name of the villages and designated village team names will be determined in this Friday’s meeting at 6pm at the Gillette Multipurpose Gymnasium.

The Marianas Village Cup is run by the Northern Mariana Islands Basketball Federation and sponsored by Tan Holdings, which is supporting different sports competitions in the CNMI as part of its 50th anniversary celebration. Tan Holdings started with the Northern Marianas Athletics-led relay run in April, followed by the NMI Cycling Federation’s 50K Bike Race and Triathlon Association in the CNMI’s Taga Kids and Sprint Triathlon in August and September. The company is also looking into supporting a volleyball tournament and canoe and swim races.

For basketball, NMIBF board member and Marianas Village Cup league coordinator Irish Pagarao hopes that this competition will bring back the inter-village level tournaments in the CNMI and encourage villages to form their own teams in the near future.

The Marianas Village Cup will kick off with the parade of teams at 3pm, while the first match of the competition is scheduled for 4pm. Tan Holdings is providing uniform to the 18 teams. Pagarao is calling on all teams to be at the venue by 2:30pm. Matches in the Marianas Village Cup will be played every Saturday and Sunday and there will be three games per playdate. Other details about the league, including competition format, will be discussed in this Friday’s meeting.

Meanwhile, NMIBF president James Lee is pleased that the federation is able to host its first 5-on-5 basketball competition outside the interscholastic level. He added that the Marianas Village Cup will also help provide actual game experience to the NMI U15 girls and boys teams that are getting ready for the FIBA Oceania Championship, which will be held in Guam next month.

“We’re grateful to Tan Holdings and the Tan Siu Lin Foundation for sponsoring the Marianas Village Cup and giving us the opportunity to resume 5-on-5 basketball games for our community, especially for our youth. The NMIBF would also like to thank our member clubs for assembling teams for this competition,” Lee said.

For more information about the Marianas Village Cup, call Pagarao at 285-1138. (PR)