This year's edition of the water polo series between Brigham Young-Hawaii and Chaminade will be a little bit more meaningful. Seasiders, Silverswords
put rankings on the lineBy Jerry Campany
jcampany@starbulletin.comThe chance to carry around local bragging rights for a year is always important to the players, but now there are spots in the national poll on the line. The two teams play their first game against each other today at 7 p.m. at the Kamehameha Pool.
"It is a grudge match because they (Chaminade) played last year and lost 3-2," Chaminade coach Ben Nary said. "The seniors want to get it done."
Chaminade wants to take the unofficial title of best collegiate team in the state away from BYUH because in one year the Seasiders built a program and beat Chaminade three out of five times.
"Last year I think we caught them by surprise," BYUH coach Aukai Ferguson said.
But what a year it has been for the Seasiders. They played their first game in history just over a year ago and have already climbed into the national rankings.
The Seasiders (2-4) are ranked No. 18 in this week's Collegiate Water Polo Association Top-20 poll and the 7-0 Silverswords broke through into the No. 20 spot. It will be the first time two local teams have squared off while being nationally ranked.
Because they are both on the edge of the top 20, both coaches know that there may not be room for both programs on the national list after the series, making it that much more important.
Adding to the new wrinkle will be a new guy at poolside directing Chaminade's attack. Nary replaced Bruce Black as head coach this year after Black resigned following a 7-8 season.
As soon as he took the job, Nary began competing with Ferguson for players and will get a chance to see how he did beginning today.
"I knew what I had when I took over," Nary said. "But I knew what I needed to get. I knew we had shooters and was fortunate to get players in the other key roles."
Nary certainly has shooters. His team scored 100 goals in its first seven games, all on the road and two of them against ranked teams. He scored upsets of then No. 20 UC Davis -- who has climbed to No. 17 despite the loss to Chaminade -- and No. 18 Redlands.
As many shooters as Nary has, Ferguson counters with a freshman goalie who he believes may be the best in the nation. Alexsander Stankovic was the goalie for the Yugoslavian junior national team and his reputation has preceded him.
"Oh yea, I have something in the works for him," Nary said. "I talked to some players from Cal Baptist who played against them in Calif., and they saw something."
Whatever plans Nary has for Stankovic, they will only be good for the first round of a five round fight. By the second game, both coaches will have to come up with a new plan. Then they will have to do it three more times before the series is over.
"Not to take anything away from the players, it always comes down to the players," Ferguson said. "But by the last game, coaching will become extremely more important. Last year the scoring went down in every game right to the end because everybody knew everybody. It ought to be a lot of fun."
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