More rain, more medals, more wins

07/06/2025 Koror, Palau — It was another rainy hot, then later rainy day in Palau but Team Marianas kept the energy high as the 2025 Palau Pacific Mini Games continued. They added three more medals to their tally—all from weightlifting—thanks to Joey Colisao (silver and bronze) and Jason Limes (bronze) for a total of 26 medals as of July 5. 

Both Colisao and Limes lifted in the super heavy weight 110kg+ category and wrapped up weightlifting’s stint in the Games with three medals.

Colisao bagged a silver in total weight with 305kg and bronze in the snatch with a best lift of 140kg. He said of his hardware, “It’s great to come back and lift for CNMI and go up against some of the best weightlifters here—David [Liti], Sanele Mao—some of the strongest lifters here and I’m so honored to go against them. They were probably not at their best but I’m glad I pushed myself even harder to get this, so yeah, it was great.”

He added that he met his goal in the competition and that he’s the first person from the CNMI to lift a total of 305kg in the 110kg+ division. “I’ve trained really hard, I mostly trained by myself in Tinian and I’m separate from the guys in Saipan, so I had to train even harder because it’s only me. But, Antonette [Labausa] did her best to communicate with me and get me through this and I’m so glad to have her as my coach,” he said.

Limes, for his part, said, “I’m just so happy right now. I feel like I could’ve done better, but it’s all good, but at least I did better than I did before. I PRd in my snatch, clean and jerk, and total as well—didn’t hit my goals, but it’s all good.”

As for the competition this time, he said, “These are big boys, man. I’m just glad I was somewhat up there with them.”

For Labausa, coach of the team and athlete, she said she was really proud of the team. “What a great way to end the competition for our weightlifting team. We got silver and a couple bronze, so honestly walking away with anything at this point with the competition that has been presented to us, is really an achievement. So, they made it happen. Leowell [Cristobal] also helped coach as well

The men’s beach volleyball duo, Logan Mister and Andrew Johnson, came out smashing and dinking their way to back-to-back wins—first defeating their 2022 PMG rivals and defending champions, Vanuatu, 21-10, 21-16, then advancing to the quarterfinals with a win over Papua New Guinea, 21-16, 21-16.

The 3x3 women’s basketball team opened strong with a win against the Federated States of Micronesia but couldn’t push through to the final game of the day after falling to the Solomon Islands.

Meanwhile, the women’s softball team returned to the diamond after their July 4 win but came up short against American Samoa, 2-23. The men’s indoor volleyball team lost to Wallis and Futuna, 9-25, 11-25, 7-25, and the women’s team also fell to American Samoa, 8-25, 12-25, 9-25, .

The swimmers wrapped up their campaign with the open water swim. They didn’t make the podium in the final event but played a huge role in anchoring Team Marianas with 14 of the team's 26 total medals.

Today, most of the team gets a well-deserved rest day, but the baseball team is back in action, facing off against host nation Palau at 7pm local time due to rain delays.

Report by Leigh Gases