THE NMI Rollers reached the semifinals of the 2022 Arizona Asian Pacific Islander Basketball Tournament last week.
The Rollers are Jun Fidelino, Derrick Atalig, John Kintz, Prince Factor, Manny Matagolai, John John Capuyon, June Alipio, Angelo Factor, William Camacho, Markel Toves and Allan Ocaya.
In the quarterfinals, the Rollers faced a team from Yap and found their groove early with June Alipio at the frontline dropping eight points while John Kintz and Manny Matagolai adding five points apiece to establish a double-digit lead.
Then in the second half, nearly the entire team found their stroke from beyond the arc. Derrick Atalig and Jun Fidelino led the assault with two triples each while Alipio, Kintz, John Capuyon and Angelo Factor contributed one each to triumph by over 30 points and clinch a semifinal spot.
But against Guam in the semifinals, the Rollers could only score 11 points in the first half.
They managed to get out of the gutter in the second half with Prince Factor, Kintz and Matagolai finding the bottom of the net. However, their late-game rally was not enough, and they had to settle for defeat.
When asked why they chose “Rollers” as the NMI team’s name, Prince Factor said: “We wanted to stick to our roots. We wanted to let everyone know where we started.”
He added “It gives us motivation and it is also little reminder of what our purposes are. We want to represent the Rollers of Saipan. We are all from Saipan, born and raised. To leave home and still find a group of basketball players all from the Rollers team of your home island is something that doesn’t happen every day. It feels great to play together and keep the name Rollers. Unfortunately, we fell short in the semis.”
Overall, he said, “the tournament was a great experience. Having to hoop with longtime teammates was truly a blessing. We fell short, but we’ll be back competing in November. We are already playing in a few tournaments in Vegas and we have another Asian-Pacific Islander tournament in Arizona in November. We will be prepping for more tourneys in the future as well.”
The NMI Rollers pose for a photo at the 2022 Arizona Asian Pacific Islander Basketball Tournament in Arizona.
