TYCE Mister and Kathleen Winkfield were crowned King and Queen of the Court for earning the most points in the second leg of the Northern Mariana Islands Volleyball Association’s tryouts for the Pacific Mini Games that Saipan will host in July next year.
The tryouts, which were held at four different courts at the Fiesta Resort and Hyatt beaches, were delayed briefly by heavy rain earlier in the day.
But as soon as the sun was back, the tryouts proceeded with a total of 21 players — eight women and 13 men — vying for slots on the NMI volleyball team.
A player had to compete with each of the other players in the tryouts that started at 8:30 a.m. and concluded at around 12 noon.
Top seed Tyce Mister teamed up with No. 4 Jermaine Salas in Game 13. Their 15-7 win over second-seeded Dylan and No. 3 Blake Mister secured Tyce’s individual victory.
In the game before that, Tyce and team-mate Jacoby Winkfield edged Dylan and Jermaine Salas, 17-15.
Tyce and Dylan then teamed up against No. 6 Steven Balakrishna and JM Justo in Game 5 to win 15-11.
Tyce also teamed up with Blake against Jakey Deleon Guerrero and Marc Denga with the Misters winning 16-14.
Tyce Mister garnered a total 182 points to top the men’s division. Dylan was second, Blake was third and Jermaine Salas was fourth.
Among the women, Kathlyn Winkfield won six of her seven games to tally 138 points and earn the Queen of the Court title.
No. 2 Alyssa Purmonir Mahin triumphed in five of her seven games to finish second. Toni Yamada was third and Charnessa Lizama secured five victories to score 133 and finish fourth.
The five-hour beach volleyball competition was NMIVA’s second tryout event, association president Somia T. Quan said. It was originally set for Nov. 6 but was rescheduled due to the Covid-19 community transmission.
“We are fortunate that our sport is outdoors but we still take extra precaution by practicing the 3Ws, sanitizing the volleyballs between games, and enforcing a mask-on rule when not playing,” Quan said.
“We only have so much time left so as a federation we are trying to continue to make progress in selecting our national team as safely as possible. We are excited with the numbers we have and we hope to continue this momentum as we get closer to the Mini Pacific Games,” she added.
Top-seed Tyce Mister spikes the ball during the King and Queen of the Court tryouts at the Hyatt beach on Saturday.
Kathleen Winkfield hits the ball during the King and Queen of the Court tryouts at the Hyatt beach on Saturday.
