Good news, bad news in local sports

Most of the games in local sporting events last week went ahead as scheduled with the power outages lasting only for a few hours a day, at least at the venues of the various tournaments.

But the improved condition of the power crisis on the island was not last week’s scene stealer—the CNMI skipping the 2009 South Pacific Mini Games in the Cook Islands was.

Michael White, president of the Northern Marianas Amateur Sports Association, during the NMASA monthly meeting announced that the Commonwealth will not be sending athletes to the quadrennial meet.

NMASA failed to get commitments from golf, athletics, and sailing associations which earlier signified their interests to join the regional event in Rarotonga.

Sailing’s Tony Stearns said he and wife Janet McCullough would not be able to make it to next year’s Mini Games due to business and family commitments.

Athletics is skipping the Games for cost-cutting measures, while golf has yet to inform NMASA about their interest to compete in the Cook Islands.

Back to the local scene, the PTI caging, which has been affected by the rolling power outages, named the league’s scoring champion in the regular season.

Department of Public Works/Procurement & Supply’s Edgar Pangelinan bested 14 others in the scoring champion race.

Pangelinan collected 265 points in seven games in the regular season to average 37.9 points per match. The DPW/P&S hotshot fired 50 points twice and had the most triples of the season, hitting 11 treys in their 81-100 loss to Autonomous.

DPW did not make it to the playoff round, which started last week and the post season is on schedule as only the match between Corrections and the Legislature was suspended.

The opening of the 2008 Coalition of Private Schools Volleyball League Monday afternoon was cancelled not by a power outage, but due to rain.

But still the league opened its 2008 season in the same week with middle school defending champion Seventh Day Adventists surviving Saipan International School Blue.

SDA won in three hard-fought sets, 25-20, 30-28, 15-13.

In swimming, Kai Staal began the fall season with an impressive performance in the Tsunami Swimming Center Saipan time trial.

Staal timed in at 26.67 seconds in the 50m freestyle swim to move closer to making it to the national reportable times (T16). His time received an AAAA ranking in the U.S. standard time. The Four As is the highest in the National Age Group Time progressions and is equivalent to 97 percent of the Top 16 National Reportable Times.

NRT or T16 represents a level that a swimmer must surpass to submit his name for consideration in the annual Top 16 list. The annual rankings are published in the Swimming World magazine and each qualifier receives certification from USA Swimming. Swimmers earning a NRT are in the Top 1 percent of the American Age Group swimmers.

While Staal had a good time in the water, Saipan-based triathlete Manny Sitchon did not as big waves greeted him in Los Angeles.

But Sitchon survived the big waves of Venice Beach to finish the Olympic-distance race in the 2008 Kaiser Permanente Los Angeles Triathlon.

He completed the 1.5-kilometer swim, 40-km bike, and 30-km run races in three hours and 57 seconds.

In bowling, Bicol Express ruled the 6th season of the Philippine Bowling Association Monday Night League.

The winning team is composed of Kitz Barja, Paul Bea, Totie Limpin, Edwin Guzman, and Rey Madrilejos.

The exodus of athletes continues with Marianas Amateur Table Tennis Association bidding goodbye to Con Pobre and Peter De Leon.

De Leon, an architect with E.F. Camacho Engineers and Architects, would be relocating to Seoul, South Korea, for his next job. Pobre, who is the bank manager of PNB Remittance Saipan, would be leaving for his next overseas assignment in the U.S. mainland.