Other Pinoy athletes shine for CNMI in Micro Games

Saipan, CNMI - Filipino-American Rezne Wong, the Top Male Athlete of the 7th Micronesian Games, was not the only athlete with Filipino roots that made waves for the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) in the recent 7th Micronesian Games. More than a dozen Filipino athletes donned the CNMI colors in Koror Koror, Palau with 10 of them winning medals in the respective events they competed in. Wong, an incoming Marine Biology sophomore at the University of Hawaii-Manoa, was clearly the best of the lot capturing 13 gold medals in the swimming competition. Fellow athletes with ties to the Philippines that also represented the CNMI also brought home medals. In triathlon, 19-year-old Matthew Mancao finished third in the men's division after crossing the finish line of the shortened course (750-meter swim, 10-kilometer bike, and 5-K run) in 1:18:41. And with CNMI teammates Mieko Carey and Kieran Daly topping the women's and men's divisions, respectively, Mancao also received a team gold medal along with his individual bronze. "The course was difficult. This was the first triathlon that I didn't enjoy any of the three disciplines. The swim had about two-foot waves pounding on us. The bike course was wet and hilly which made it very dangerous to obtain speed on the turns. If I could have pushed a bit more on the bike I could have been in contention for a gold or silver," he said. The second-year University of Guam student also dreams of one day representing the Philippines in triathlon competitions, but acknowledged that he still has a long way to go in terms of training and maturity. Mancao’s father, Florencio, hails from Cebu while his mother is a Chinese national. In tennis, former San Beda College varsity player Peter Loyola bagged two silvers and a bronze medal. His first silver came when he and teammates Todd Montgomery, Jeff Race and Bobby Cruz finished second to Guam in the team competition. He earned his second silver when he finished runner-up to Montgomery in the men's singles, while the bronze came when he and Cruz placed third in the doubles division. Loyola, who used to represent the Philippines in international motocross and mountain bike competitions, is the tennis professional instructor at the Fiesta Resort & Spa Saipan. Swimmer Michael Moran Jr., an incoming Marianas High School junior, seems to be following Wong's footsteps as he scooped two bronze medals at the Palau National Swimming Pool. Moran, whose parents hail from Albay and Pasay City, finished third in the 100m freestyle and 200m backstroke events. "I was out of swimming for almost a year because of basketball, and trained for the Micro Games for only five months. It felt like all the sacrifices I have made paid off. I am very proud of what I have accomplished," said Moran, who like Wong also hopes of swimming for the Philippine team one day. Ateneo De Manila University alumnus Steve Lim, meanwhile, served as playing coach for the CNMI table tennis team that swept the gold in the men's competition. He initially teamed up with eventual singles gold medalist Luke Lu and eventual bronze medalists Su Yong Dong and Budhi Gurung to bag the gold medal in the team competition. Lim, who is the general manager of Saipan-based hardware company Transamerica, then settled for the silver medal in the doubles after he and Gurung lost to Lu and Su in the battle for the gold. "More than any individual medal, I found fulfillment most of all in how I had responded to the pressure during competition, and seeing the growth of our team as players and competitors," he said. Filipino-American athletes also played for the CNMI in baseball and basketball. At least two players with Filipino lineage — Justine Alexander and Jester Garcia — saw action for the CNMI national baseball team, which failed to defend their title when they lost to Palau in the finals. Three members of the silver-winning CNMI national women's basketball team were also born to Filipino parents — Jeralyn Castillo, Ira Palero and Lelaine Pagarao. Meanwhile, Jericho Cruz, who plays for Rizal Technological University in the State Colleges and Universities Athletics Association, finished as the No. 2 scorer in the men's division of the Games with his 21.5 points per game average. The 6-foot-1 guard totaled 129 points in the round-robin elimination, posting his biggest output against Palau when he logged 28 points in the CNMI's 67-61 win. Cruz' other Fil-Am teammates are Keoni Chariton, Jose Tumaquip, Joe Villacrusis, Quincy Johnson and Peter Mendiola. Heartim Williams, Ronald Villafria, Edward Manalili, and Mancao’s brother, Michael, are other athletes with Filipino blood who competed for the CNMI in track and field. Similar to the Southeast Asian Games, the Micro Games is a quadrennial sporting event that draws athletes from the CNMI, Guam, Palau, the Marshall Islands, Kiribati, Nauru, and the four islands of the Federated States of Micronesia — Pohnpei, Yap, Chuuk, and Kosrae. Except for Kiribati and Nauru, all island-nations mentioned participated in the Micro Games in Palau, from August 1 to 10. The CNMI is a U.S. territory north of Guam and is home to thousands of Filipino contract workers and their U.S. citizen children. – JVP, GMANews.TV