By Roselyn B. Monroyo
Variety News Staff

THE Basketball Association of the Northern Mariana Islands will hold a separate tournament for girls in this summer’s Saipan Rotary Club Youth Basketball League
BANMI’s Elias Rangamar said the decision to have a separate tournament for female players in the Rotary 18-and-under aims to promote women’s basketball on the island.
Rangamar along with former NMI women’s team members Connie Camacho and Vanessa Mobel are forming a women’s basketball association and hope to create a women’s league in the future.
The Rotary caging will also prepare NMI’s cagebelles for the Micronesian Basketball 19-and-under Tournament on Guam this November and the MBT Open in Pohnpei next year.
Rangamar added that they will have two age group contests in the Rotary caging, namely the 14-and-under and 18-and-under divisions.
The Garapan Rollers of coach Joe Diaz are the defending champions in the youth caging.
They beat the San Antonio Sixers in the finals, 87-79.
Rangamar said they have yet to set the date for the Rotary kick off, but they might open the youth caging in July or after the basketball clinics to be conducted by a FIBA Oceania official.
Eddie Calic is a Zone Development Officer at FIBA Oceania and is expected to conduct a series of clinics in the NMI in June.
He is coming off a four-week visit to Yap, Chuuk, Kosrae and Pohnpei where he conducted coaching clinics, referee clinics, school clinics and facilities inspections.