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Power-Up annexes Rocball championship
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Posted on Jan 27 2020
Members of Power-Up pose with their championship trophy after winning the 2020 Micronesia Rocball Championship last Thursday at the Marianas High School. Power-Up swept Stryker in their best-of-five championship series. (Contributed Photo)
Power-Up upended Stryker in a three-game sweep to the win the 2020 Micronesia Rocball Championship last Thursday at the Marianas High School.
Power-Up outscored the Strykers in two point serves, 33-16, and in 3-point goals, 5-2, to dominate the best-of-five championship for the CNMI’s indigenous sport of Rocball.
“Power-Up is a very spirited team of players. They have a positive attitude and support each other in every game I watched them play,” said Rocball founder James Feger after the title matchup.
Nilo Calimay of Power-Up was named the MVP for the championship series after he scored 20 aces, 2 kees, and a goal for a total of 47 points. The rest of the championship team is made up of six boys and two girls—Calimay, Jerico Castro, Wency Castillo, Madellen Narciso, Ariel Moises, Futima Monterubio, Jasper Perez, and Daniel Park.
In Rocball’s mixed games if a team doesn’t have a girl registered to play, they can only play five boys.
Power-Up went undefeated during the regular season this year and won the runner-up slot against the Veteran Rocball players last year. The Veterans were made up of college players and high school graduates that came back to campus to play as a team in last year’s league.
Unlike in 2019, Feger restricted the games to high school students this year. The Veterans and Teachers teams have asked for a matchup against newly crowned Rocball champion Power-Up in an exhibition game.
Power-Up barely advanced to the championship series after knocking out The Aces in three games, 42-41. Runner-up Strykers advanced to the finals after beating previously undefeated Laly Four in the semifinals, 2-1. They are made up of Isaac Balbin, Raylyn, Ian Kaniki, Lawerence Laniyo, Rotsed Fabian, Kirro Williams, Melvin Menchor, and Able Amu.
This year’s 2020 Rocball tournament originally had 10 teams and they played in a round-robin, three-game elimination system. A team that lost three games was eliminated. The names of the teams were GTA (Get That Ace), Strykers, The Aces, Power-Up, Infinity War, WBI (We Beat It), Wanpipty, Riot, Laly Four, and Play 5.
