Supervising the team practice yesterday, manager Randall Aguon said the Asia-Pacific tournament for the majors division will be divided into two pools.
In Pool A, the NMI All Stars will meet the Philippine team on July 19, and in the succeeding games, the teams from Australia, Guam, New Zealand and Indonesia.
If the NMI All Stars beat all these teams, they would have to face the winning team from Pool B which will be composed of host Hongkong, China, Chinese Taipei, India, Korea and Thailand, to win the Asia-Pacific championship.
In 2006, the NMI All Stars advanced to the World Series in Maine after capturing the crown defeating all the All Star teams of what was then, the Pacific Regional Tournament.
In light of the Little League’s expansion last year, the Pacific Little League was combined with Asia’s Little League and the NMI All Stars after defeating once again the teams in the Pacific would have to play against the best team from Asia.
And that was the Chinese Taipei.
Thelma Mizer recalled that the NMI All Stars was one game shy to the World Series last year when the Chinese Taipei defeated them.
With veterans still around and a squad of “secret weapons” from among the new breeds, the NMI All Stars, the managing team believes are still the team to beat in the Pacific pool.
The returnees from last year’s tournament include Christian Jyles Mizer the Saipan Little League’s pitching leader with 0.26 ERA; Aldebert Lizama who had the biggest number of runs and Jeremy Rabauliman, the next biggest base runner.
Mizer who watched the team during last year’s Asia-Pacific championship attributed the lost to lapses in pitching and batting. She said that fielding wise, the NMI All Stars are very good. All they have to master this time are pitching and batting in able to avenge their lost from Chinese Taipei.
The new comers for this year include Saipan LittleLeague regular season’s batting champion, Frank Camacho who had a batting average of 733, with 45 at-bat and 33 hits; Jeremy John Lizama who eked out that largest number of strike outs (56) and Henry Rabauliman Jr., who hit the largest number of RBIs.
The other team members are Ricky Joe Riungel, Jared Devin Sablan, Poland Masaharu Jr., Raymond Saralu, Jerome Reyes Jr., Burt Lancaster Secharmidal, Jonah Edward Flores and Keene Deleon Guerrero.
They will be traveling to Hongkong with Aguon, and coaches, Elmer Sablan and Manny C. Sablan.
