Team PNG

In front of their vocal home crowd, Richard Kilarupa and Moha Mea trashed the Northern Marianas in the first two sets, 21-10 and 21-0 to record their victory.

The beach volleyball competition of the XV Pacific Games got going this morning at the BSP Stadium outer arena.

PNG’s final game for day one will be played at 4pm.

PNG men play Tonga and PNG and American Samoa ladies will go into battle. 

He made the comment after the host nation collected four gold and one silver medals in the four events earlier.

Upston said he "felt emotional" because of the effort put into by the lifters.

 He said that he had faith in the power lifters to make the country proud.

"(Lifters) trusted in the programs, believed in themselves and it paid dividend,’’ he said.

 The contracted coach also challenged  the national government to support the code so its potential can be seen.

Samoa hit an early lead after Peter Hazelman and Beckett Leota scored touch downs to sound a warning to PNG.

A touch down from Bobby Vavona put PNG back in the contest however. Samoa’s Lima Lote extended the lead to 3-1 before half time.

The second half of play saw a flurry of points from both sides. Uari Sarufa from PNG scored twice to level the scores at 3-3.

From this point, touch downs were scored from one of the field to another and about a minute out before play ended, the scores were locked at 6-6.

The home girls lost to bronze medal holders Fiji 86-60 today in front of their home crowd.

Fiji dominated the game, leading throughout the game and taking the lead in the first quarter , 25-16.

In the second quarter, PNG pulled through to keep up but the Fijians were too fast and had a height advantage with players like  Leba Korovou and Vilisi Tavui.

Fiji maintained their lead at the end of the second quarter, 45-31.

Pini clocked the fastest in the men’s 50m butterfly in 24.58 seconds ahead of Tahiti.

Samuel Seghers also qualified in the 50m butterfly in a time of 25.51 seconds.

Savannah Tkatchenko qualified in the women’s 100m breaststroke on 1 minute,16 seconds while Barbara Vali-Skelton clocked 1minute,19seconds.

Ryan Maske and Askley Seeto qualified in the men’s 200m breaststroke event.

Anna-Liza Mopio Jane clocked seventh fastest in the women’s 50m butterfly and Stanford Kawale qualified in the men’s 200m medley. 

Pictured are men in this morning's hits.

It took PNG's strike player Tommy Semmy  to score PNG's first goal at the Pacific Games midway through the first half.

Semmy had several more chances to score, going one on one with the keeper but was unlucky.

 The Solomon Islanders came equally close to scoring but goal keeper Ismael Pole has so far managed to keep the ball  from getting past him.

Another one of Pole's saves got him injured and he had to be taken off on a stretcher by medics in injury time. 

Heading the push for precious metal are our golden fish Ryan Pini (54.21 sec) and Sam Seghers (56.09 sec) for the men 100m butterfly.

Seghers is the fastest behind Pini in this event.

Shanice Paraka (32.75 sec) and Anna-Liza Mopio-Jane (32.88 sec) for women 50m backstroke. Emma Terebo of New Caledonia was the fastest in this event with a new Games record of 29.86 sec. The previous record was 30.28 sec.

In shooting, there will be two gold medals up for grabs in the men’s and women’s 10m air pistol event.

The women’s final takes place at 11:15 at the June Valley Shooting Range, with the men’s final following at 15:30.

There will be four gold medals awarded in Va’a (canoeing) in the men’s and women’s 1500m and 500m V6 events, which start at 12:00 at the Naval Base.

The women’s and men’s team table tennis finals will take place at the Caritas Technical Secondary School at East Boroko at 14:30 and 17:00.

This draw schedule reflects the final entries now received by all competing teams.

The schedule for all matches and all competitions will be released by the GOC via their website in the coming week.

PNG will be competing in eleven team sports with both men and women’s teams in Basketball, Cricket, Hockey, Lawn Bowls, Rugby 7’s, Soccer, Touch Football and Volleyball.

Rugby 9’s will have a men’s team only while netball and softball will see a women’s team only compete.

The chants will be released to local radio stations and wider media outlets.

People have been encouraged to get behind the chants and support Team PNG achieves its ultimate success.

They were also encouraged to learn the chants and join in the singing as they are cheering during the Games.

Chef de Mission of Team PNG, Richard Kassman was pleased to announce the officially sanctioned Team PNG chants.