NMC claims PTI caging pennant

The pennant championship in the Inaugural PTI Inter-Government/Business Basketball League was handed on a silver platter to Northern Marianas College, as it won its last two games at the Gilbert C. Ada Gymnasium Wednesday night via forfeits.

NMC needed to sweep the last two games in the regular season to beat PTI in the battle for the pennant. NMC and PTI finished the elimination round with identical 10-1 records, but the former won the tiebreak after downing the latter in their lone match in the regular season, 87-82.

Actually, NMC played half of one of its last two games Tuesday night, colliding with Autonomous. But the game was suspended due to a power outage with NMC ahead at halftime, 45-35.

Autonomous did not have enough players for the continuation of the match Wednesday night, giving NMC a free ride to its ninth win.

On the same night, NMC was to play the Commonwealth Ports Authority, but the latter also showed up for the game with only four players.

Meanwhile, the playoff round was set to start last night with the No. 3 seed Department of Community and Cultural Affairs facing the No. 6 pick Bank of Guam.

DCCA finished the regular season with an 8-3 record, while Bank of Guam had a 7-4 mark.

Other pairings in the first round of the double-elimination playoffs are NMC vs. Legislature, Department of Corrections vs. Autonomous, and PTI vs. Tinian.

Legislature caught the last bus to the playoff round with its 4-7 slate and will duel NMC on Monday.

Corrections and the defending champion Autonomous have similar 7-4 records, but the former claimed the No. 4 ranking having beaten the latter in the regular season. They will collide tonight at 6:30pm.

With NMC securing the pennant, PTI dropped to the No. 2 spot and will challenge 2006 inter-government champion Tinian on Tuesday. Tinian ended the regular season with a 6-5 record.

Three teams did not make it to the next round with Aguaguat and Department of Public Works/Procurement & Supply finishing the regular season with identical 3-8 records and CPA having a dismal 1-10 slate.

Twelve teams participated in the PTI caging, but Department of Public Safety pulled out from the league going into the last few weeks of the regular season.

League organizer Joey Dela Cruz said they will be holding one game per night in the playoffs for now, until the power situation gets better.

“It’s better to schedule one game every night and finish it before the power goes out instead of having two games with the second one suspended midway through the match or in the last few minutes of the game. This happened a lot in the regular season,” Dela Cruz said.

The league is expected to finish the season at the end of this month if it will continue with the one game per night schedule.