Saturday, December 2, 2023 – 17^th Pacific Games, Honiara, Solomon Island

The team of Reo Aiken, Mark Johnson, along with returnees Ben Borja II and Mike Sakazaki were successful in retaining the gold medal at the closing of the 17^th Pacific Games in Honiara, Solomon Islands.  The team took the top seed post after a 4-1 pool play record to enter the semifinal rounds. They easily dispatched Pool A 2^nd seed Papua New Guinea with4:37 remaining in the contest on a 21-4 drubbing to set up a rematch with Fiji.  The rematch did not disappoint as both teams went the distance.  As the clock expired, Guam notched another win by a razor thin one point margin,19-18.

The gold medal performance brought Guam’s total medal tally to 7 Gold, 4 Silver and 6 Bronze.

Earlier in the day, 17-year-old Hugh Grant competed in the half marathon where he shaved off three minutes from his previous best mark finishing in sixth place out of eighteen athletes.

The event was a success for Team Guam as the medal tally of7 gold medals was the best performance since hosting the event in 1999.  Team Guam topped their last two outings of 3 Golds.  In 2019, Guam finished in 14^th place in Samoa with 3 gold medals, 11^th place in Port Moresby 2015 with 3 gold medals, 14^th place in Noumea with no gold medals, 16^th place in Samoa 2007 with one gold, and 6^th place with 6 gold medals in Suva 2003.