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Mahelona makes good
Tennessee junior tackle Jesse Mahelona (Kealakehe '01 of Kailua-Kona) was honored as Southeastern Conference Defensive Player of the Week on Monday, but he was honored in another way perhaps even more meaningful.
The Vols lost to Notre Dame 17-13 on Saturday. After the game, Notre Dame offensive guard Bob Morton told a reporter:
"Mahelona is one of the greatest competitors I've ever gone up against. He was just a great, classy guy.
"If you got him on a play, he would tell you 'Hey, you got me there,' and then I'd help him up.
"But if he got you he would help you up."
Mahelona "got" Morton and the Irish five times for losses of 13 yards, including one sack on a diving tackle.
He was the heart of a Tennessee defense that held Notre Dame to 216 yards.
He leads the Southeastern Conference in tackles for loss with 16.5 -- five more than the next best.
His tackles behind the line have resulted in minus-79 yards for Tennessee opponents.
He has five sacks and 34 total tackles.
"I wish I could say it like he says it -- he has an old Hawaiian word meaning 'the best,' " Tennessee coach Phillip Fulmer said.
"He is the best. He loves football and he loves Tennessee."
Mahelona is the first position player from a losing team to be named SEC player of the week this year.
In other news:
» New Mexico Highlands wide receiver Ikaika Neizman (Lahainaluna '02) was chosen second-team All-Rocky Mountain conference.
Neizman caught 49 passes for 782 yards, ranking seventh in the RMAC in yards and ninth in receptions per game.
» Al Wills (Saint Louis '49 of Hawaii Kai) and Bernie Peterson (Kalani '69 of Waialae Iki) will be inducted into the Linfield College Athletics Hall of Fame on Saturday. Wills played tackle for Linfield before and after Korean war service and Peterson was an NAIA All-American end for the Wildcats in 1972 and '73.
Wills was Peterson's football coach at Kalani and was the athletic director there for many years before he retired to a life of golfing. Peterson teaches at Moanalua High.
Trigg-Smith brings it all
to Princeton’s program
An enforcer with agility. That's how Princeton (New Jersey) women's soccer coach Julie Shackford describes junior Romy Trigg-Smith, a 2002 Punahou School graduate from Kailua.
Ready to DanceHawaii soccer players playing in the NCAA Tournament» Romy Trigg-Smith (Punahou '02), Princeton. » Duke's Alli Lipsher (Punahou '04 of Hawaii Kai), Duke. » Adria Campbell (Punahou '03 of Kailua) SMU. » Maile Tavepholjalern (Punahou, of Manoa), Harvard. » Lori Sakai (Iolani '02 of Mililani), UNLV. » Lisa Lerud (Punahou '04 of Makiki), U. of San Diego. » Ashlee Doi (Mililani '02) Pepperdine.
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Other coaches recognize those traits and on Monday named Trigg-Smith first-team All-Ivy League at defender, which is not her natural position but where she has played the past two years to help Princeton be a top-10 team in NCAA Division I.
Last week, Trigg-Smith used all her many traits for perhaps her most memorable week as a college athlete.
She was injured and her participation in the final regular-season game against Penn was in question, even though she was one of only 12 players on all 288 NCAA Division I teams who had played every minute of every game this season.
Princeton had already clinched the Ivy League championship, and letting her heal for the first round of NCAAs this weekend might have seemed the prudent choice.
But, an assistant coach explained, "Romy has a certain drive and she does not like sitting."
"It's all about heart," Romy said.
She said that 20 minutes into the Ivy-title-clinching game against Colgate on Oct. 31, she felt something tear in her left calf. She played the last 70 minutes in severe pain.
Afterward, she said, "I could barely walk. It was incredibly painful."
Trigg-Smith said she had torn muscle fibers in her left calf.
She let coach Shackford think it was "just a pulled muscle" and endured four hours a day of intense therapy for four days last week -- ultrasound, electric muscle stimulation, "lots of ice," massage -- the works.
On Friday, she practiced for the first time "at about 80 percent," Shackford said, and by game time Sunday, "the adrenaline kicked in," Trigg-Smith said.
"All that bottled-up energy" ignited, and Trigg-Smith was sensational against Penn.
Coach Shackford moved her from central defender to her high school/club position of central midfielder -- playmaker.
Trigg-Smith's long feed allowed Princeton superstar Esmeralda Negron to score her school-record 42nd goal (she later added 43 and 44) and Trigg-Smith scored her first collegiate goal.
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It was on a header, of course. "That has always been her favorite weapon," says Scott Keopuhiwa, who was Trigg-Smith's Leahi club coach and her Olympic Development Program coach.
Trigg-Smith played on US Youth Soccer's National Under-17 adidas team in 2000.
Trigg-Smith's streak of minutes played this season ended at 1,545 when Shackford sent in players who would not likely see the field in the NCAA Tournament. "I didn't even think about (Trigg-Smith's "perfect attendance"), Shackford said. "We had kids we wanted to play."
Shackford does think a lot, however, about the gifts that Trigg-Smith brings to the Princeton team.
"She is a great combination of somebody who sees the field well and can pull plays off, but at the same time is kind of an enforcer," Shackford said.
"She is extremely physical. She is only 5-feet-5, but she attacks everything. She's got an enforcer mentality. She breaks up plays, wins 50-50 balls.
"But she is also very good with her feet; she can pull off plays that typically an enforcer-type player cannot do. She is the best of both worlds."
This season, Trigg-Smith was the leader of a Tiger defense that allowed eight goals in 17 games.
Next season, when Princeton loses 10 seniors Shackford expects Trigg-Smith to be a leader ("she is inspirational") and might let her play midfielder ("she probably would be scoring six goals a season if she played there all the time"), the coach said.
"I'm just having fun. That's when you play your best," Trigg-Smith said.
