Beach volleyball fever hits Saipan

Undoubtedly, the biggest show on the island last week was the 17th Marianas Cup Beach Volleyball Festival, which brought hundreds of beach volleyball fans and even non-enthusiasts of the sport, too, on the sand courts of Pacific Islands Club in San Antonio.

Fans and non-fans alike were treated to a show by Beijing Olympics gold medalist Phil Dalhausser, fellow U.S. pros Paul Baxter, Jennifer Snyder, and Jenelle Koester, their counterparts from Korea and Japan, local players, and several off-island participants.

In the end, Baxter, who won last year with Saipan’s Randy Steele as his teammate, ruled the men’s division, again, with new partner Hugo Dooner.

Baxter and Dooner defeated the pair of Dalhausser and Saipan’s Tyce Mister in the finals, 21-15.

The women’s division also had repeat champions in Yoko Miki and Chie Iwana, who topped the Italian tandem of Daniela Gitteli and Federica Tonon, 21-18.

Over at the northern part of the island at the Kan Pacific Swimming Pool in Marpi, five swim clubs competed in 150 events in the 2009 Saipan Swim Club International Invitational Meet.

After two days of plunging into the pool, Tsunami Swimming Center Saipan emerged as overall winner, earning 962 points. In second place was host and last year’s overall champion SSC, which earned 747 points. Tarakito Swim Club of Guam placed third with 293 points, followed by Manukai Swim Club of Guam (225), Guam Typhoon (154), and the SSC Masters (45).

In the same meet, two Tsunami Saipan swimmers set records in their respective age groups.

Kensuke Kimura competed in the open division, but his time of 5:35.70 seconds in the 400m individual medley shattered the boys’ 11-12 age group record. He broke the five-year mark of previous record-holder Rezne Wong, who timed in at 5:51.18 on April 4, 2004.

Kaito Yanai also entered the record books after setting a mark in the boys’ 9-10 age group 100m butterfly event. The Garapan Elementary School student timed in at 1:28.68, eclipsing the 16-year record of Dean Palacios (1:28.89/March 12, 1993).

After the Invitational, Guam and Saipan swimmers participated in the 31st Saipan Swim Club Ocean Swim at World Resort Saipan

Rezne Wong capped his last age group ocean swim with a win in the longest course of the day.

Wong timed in at 33 minutes, 42 seconds in the 2,500-meter race, beating five other participants in the boys’ 15 to 19 age group, including Tsunami Swimming Center Saipan teammate Cooper Graf (36:52).

Other top finishers in various age groups were Sarah Klassen, Ryosei Toda, Angel Tan, Maxi Braig, Victoria Chentsova, Kensuke Kimura, Rione Emma, Benji Schulte, Keanna Villagomez, David Palacios, Mamiko Berger, Vener Urena, Suzy Kindel, Lewie Tenorio, Kieran Daly, Monica Yamaguchi, Manny Sitchon, and Florian Braig.

While beach volleyball players and swimmers took the local center stage, the CNMI Men’s Football Team was on a mission in Guam.

The Commonwealth strikers participated in the East Asian Football Championship 2010 Preliminary Competition at the Leo Palace Resort.

The CNMI bets played Macau Wednesday with the former scoring the first goal of the tournament before losing to the latter, 1-6.

Joe Miller scored in the fifth minute of the first half on an assist from Peter Houk, stunning the favored Macau.

The CNMI played Guam on the second day of the tournament last Friday with team captain Peter Loken scoring in the second half in the Commonwealth’s 1-2 loss.

The CNMI strikers were playing Mongolia in their last game yesterday.

The team to earn the most points after three games in the preliminary competition will advance to the semifinal round, which will be played in Taiwan in August this year.

Meanwhile, ongoing leagues and tournaments on Saipan went ahead as scheduled, keeping pace with crowd-drawing events the island hosted last week.

Competitions in the Saipan Little League Baseball and Saipan Major League are heating up, while the Budweiser caging and slow-pitch leagues are heading to their last few games in the regular season.