Wednesday, September 12, 2001

Seasiders opt to play
through the tragedy

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By Jerry Campany
jcampany@starbulletin.com

On a day that had few winners, the Brigham Young-Hawaii water polo team was deemed one.

But the Seasiders did not exactly feel like victors.

BYUH (3-4) took to the water in Claremont, Calif., hours after hearing of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, shaking off a day of tragic news to pull out a 10-7 win in front of a quiet crowd estimated at 50 people.

"Just like the president said, 'You get on with your life,' that is what being an American is all about," BYUH coach Aukai Ferguson said. "It (the tragedy) definitely puts everything in perspective."

Vanja Kalabic paced the Seasiders with four goals and three steals, while goalie Ricky Signs snared nine saves. The Seasiders improved to 3-4 and will finish the road trip with a match against No. 11 Loyola Marymont today. They are scheduled to come back to Oahu at 7 a.m. tomorrow, if their flight holds up.

Ferguson said that the match was definitely not like any other, either for the players or the fans. But the teams pressed on after some announcements and two seconds of silence.

The silence lasted longer than two seconds, though.

"All of the parents were pretty distracted," Ferguson said. "Everybody was in a state of shock. We have 13 freshmen, so the kids didn't know what to make of it. We were all in a state of shock."

BYUH's volleyball team was also in the situation of being on the road -- in Billings, Montana -- with nothing to do but compete or watch endless news reports. So they competed, but lost their conference opener in five games, 29-32, 30-25, 28-30, 30-26, 13-15, at the hands of Montana State-Billings.

Xu Don led the Seasiders with 20 kills, followed by fellow sophomore Ashley Moeai with 17. They play Montana State again today.

"I thought we wouldn't play," coach Wilfred Navalta said. "But we had to play despite the world situation. We talked about it briefly, had to take care of business and didn't. We will just have to go back out there (today)."

Saturday's BYUH invitational cross country meet involving all four of Hawaii's NCAA II schools was still tentative yesterday.

Chaminade's water polo team is slated to leave for a road trip to California tomorrow, but is unsure whether it will board the plane even if it has an opportunity to do so. The decision will be made today.

Because school was canceled in the morning, UH-Hilo did not hold practices for cross-country or volleyball and postponed its baseball tryouts until today.