A Francisco M. Sablan Middle School student reaches for the shuttlecock to return to his foe from Chacha Oceanview Middle School during one of the opening games in the TakeCare Interscholastic Badminton League last Saturday at the Gilbert C. Ada Gymnasium.
(NMBA) — The TakeCare Interscholastic Badminton League Middle School Division started the season for the 2023-2024 school year with nine teams participating in the competition that began Saturday at the Gilbert C. Ada Gymnasium.
Saipan Community School, Hopwood Middle School 1 and 2, Saipan International School, Francisco M. Sablan Middle School, and Chacha Oceanview Middle School played in the first set of games to open the action in the MS division. Each participating team fielded entries in the boys and girls singles and doubles, and mixed doubles.
The defending champion, the SIS Geckos, who ruled the first two seasons of the MS division, opened their bid for a three-peat against Hopwood 2 on Court 3 for the Bracket 2 pairings. Also in Bracket 2 are Chacha and FMS, which collided on Court 4. Completing Bracket 2 is Tanapag Middle School, which had its season debut in the second set of matches against Hopwood 2.
For the Bracket 1 matches, Hopwood 1 challenged SCS. Last year’s runner-up Agape Christian School and Tinian Middle School are also in the bracket with the latter drawing a bye in the opener and will be playing its first game of the season on November 18.
Agape, for its part, had its season-opening match versus Saipan Community.
Teams will play in a round-robin format in the preliminaries and the top squad in each bracket will square off for the championship. The No. 2 finishers in each bracket will battle for third place.
Public School System Athletic Director Nick Gross welcomed the participating teams of the 2023-2024 badminton season. He also thanked sponsor TakeCare Insurance Company Inc. for its continued support to the program, and the Northern Marianas Badminton Association for running the competition, which will also feature high school teams next month.
TakeCare has been the sponsor of the Interscholastic Badminton League since its inception in the 2021-2022 school year, while the NMBA has led the growth of the program at the school level, both in public and private schools. From just 107 players in the inaugural season, NMBA saw the program’s number grow to 194 the next season or an 81% increase in overall participation — the highest among the six sports programs offered in schools.
“We hope to continue encouraging more students to play badminton to be able to create a deeper pool of young players that we can train and develop to represent the NMI in high-level competitions. We are pleased with the support we are getting from the PSS Athletic Department and the PSS leadership, and of course the different schools that have been participating in our league. Together, we work on providing opportunities for our students through the sport of badminton,” NMBA President Merlie Tolentino said.
