Thomas Jordan, consider yourself warned. HPU runners
pursue perfectionBy Jerry Campany
jcampany@starbulletin.comJordan, the fastest runner on the Brigham Young-Hawaii cross country team, beat Hawaii Pacific's Christopher Larson to the tape by 31 seconds at the season-opening Chaminade Invitational last week.
It only gave him fifth place overall, but it prevented a 1-2-3-4-5 sweep by the Sea Warriors, who have made perfection a goal for the season.
"That's the goal; we haven't done that," HPU coach Vien Schwinn said. "It doesn't happen very often, but the guys know who they have to go after. They have to go into each race trying to beat Thomas."
Should Larson not be able to make up the 31 seconds, Schwinn believes she has someone else who might be able to do it.
She didn't allow junior Samual Macharia to run in the opener because of administrative reasons, but says that if he can match his training times, the Kenyan will easily crack the starting lineup.
Judging by the first meet, the closest races this year will not be for team titles, but for a spot on the Sea Warriors' first team.
Christian Madsen and Abdeslam Naji return, with Robert Tyler, Harald Buerke, Shadrack Nabea and Larsen fighting for the other three spots.
That kind of internal competition is what made HPU so strong, and Schwinn plans to fuel it whenever she needs to.
"My motto for this year is 'Go hard or go home,' " Schwinn said. "You rest when you die."
Besides Jordan, possible other spoilers could be Jeff Lim and Frank Dabrosky of Chaminade, the Seasiders' Steve Soelberg and Johan Dana and Owen Kano of UH-HIlo.
Schwinn's women's team has an internal competition of another sort -- beating their big sisters for the first time.
Although the Sea Warriors had the top two runners at the Chaminade Invitational, they lost the team title to Division I UH-Manoa by six points.
"We are hoping to beat UH; we have never done that," Schwinn said. "That is the goal until we get to conference."
Schwinn can look to such a task because her women were unchallenged by their Division II counterparts. They beat third place BYUH by 36 points.
Schwinn is not thinking sweep for her women because Lisa Blomme transferred, robbing the Sea Warriors of the depth needed to turn the trick.
Should the Sea Warriors not beat the Rainbow Wahine this year, they only have to outlast Chelsea Smith of BYUH and Colleen Cassidy of UH-Hilo.
Smith and Cassidy are capable of beating any Sea Warrior not named Nina Christensen and Sayuri Kusutani.
They are not surrounded by the depth Christensen and Kusutani are, though, and will be running mostly for second place in the team standings.
Seasiders upset ranked D-I team: The BYUH water polo team goes about rebuilding in a different way -- by sending its young squad on the road to take on the nation's premier teams.
In their first week of the season, the Seasiders visited and lost to Division I No. 10 UC San Diego, No. 9 UC Santa Barbara and No. 3 USC. Some good did come out of the trip though, as the Seasiders beat No. 19 Air Force and have remained confident despite being in over their heads in most games.
"That's the thing I've been really happy with," BYUH coach Aukai Ferguson said. "The guys have really stayed in the games and have not quit."
The Seasiders share a conference with Chaminade, and will take them on in a five-game series this year.
The Silverswords are playing the bulk of their schedule this week before their first meeting with the Seasiders next Friday.